MINNEAPOLIS– Vensana Capital, a leading venture capital and growth equity firm focused on medical technology, has announced the launch of Vensana Innovation (VI), a new initiative dedicated to building and advancing next-generation medtech companies. The firm also named Thomas Tu, M.D., as Venture Partner and CEO of the new platform.
Vensana Innovation is designed to identify, develop, and commercialize breakthrough medical technologies that meet major unmet clinical needs. The new platform will provide entrepreneurs and innovators with capital, operational support, and access to a team of seasoned medtech professionals. VI will pursue opportunities ranging from internally generated concepts and physician-led collaborations to partnerships with emerging companies and established device manufacturers.
Dr. Tu joins Vensana following his tenure as Chief Medical Officer at Inari Medical, where he played a key role in developing and validating the company’s thrombectomy technologies and helping establish a new standard of care for venous thromboembolism. Before entering industry leadership, he spent two decades as an interventional cardiologist at Baptist Health Louisville, directing the hospital’s catheterization lab and leading programs in pulmonary embolism, coronary intervention, and structural heart procedures. A graduate of the University of Virginia and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Tu completed his training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
The VI leadership team also includes Chairman Bill Hoffman, along with R&D executives Ben Merritt, Cole Thress, Brian Merritt, and Advising CTO Phil Marchand—veterans of category-defining companies such as Inari Medical and Sequent Medical.
“I am thrilled to join Vensana Capital and lead Vensana Innovation,” said Dr. Tu. “Working with visionary entrepreneurs to develop technologies that meaningfully improve patient care is an extraordinary opportunity. The expertise of this team, combined with Vensana’s proven track record, creates the ideal foundation for accelerating medtech innovation.”
VI Chairman Bill Hoffman added, “This is the next chapter for a team that has built and scaled transformative medical technology companies. Partnering with Vensana gives us the resources and vision to bring new solutions to patients worldwide.”
Vensana’s managing partners Kirk Nielsen and Justin Klein, M.D., J.D., said the new platform reinforces the firm’s mission to support innovation at every stage of the medtech lifecycle. “Since our founding in 2019, Vensana has been committed to helping entrepreneurs turn promising ideas into impactful companies,” they said in a joint statement. “With Tom leading Vensana Innovation, we’re expanding our ability to build and back world-class medical technology businesses from the ground up.”
