Archus Orthopedics, a Redmond company developing reconstructive implants for spine disorders, has “substantially” reduced its headcount and scaled back operations, according to Chairman and CEO Jim Fitzsimmons. Fitzsimmons declined to say how many employees were laid off or how many remain but said he is confident of a “successful outcome for the company.”
Here’s the full statement from Fitzsimmons:
Although Archus Orthopedics has been performing very well, we have the unfortunate luck to be a relatively mature, but still pre-revenue company, in need of sustaining capital in an extremely challenging financing market. As you know, outside funding for companies at our stage is particularly difficult to obtain these days. We recently closed a bridge financing with our current investors. We also made the difficult decision to substantially reduce our headcount and scale back operations in order to reduce our burn rate and extend the runway provided by our current cash. We did execute a venture debt deal with GE Capital in 2008. GE has, all along, been cooperative with Archus and supportive of our decisions. They, like our Board, are confident that we will be able to engineer a successful outcome for the company.
Archus’ investor group includes Johnson & Johnson, InterWest, Polaris and MPM Capital. The company was founded in 2001, and has raised more than $63 million in funding. A filing with the SEC from last month indicated that Archus had raised $2.27 million of what could be a $19.5 million offering.
News about the layoffs was first reported by Xconomy.
Source: TechFlash
published: May 19, 2009 in: Companies, Financial, News, Products, USA