Stratos Medical

WestBIC is an Enterprise Ireland partner providing hands-on startup support, funding readiness and investment preparation for early-stage founders in the west of Ireland.

Stratos Medical is a Galway-based start-up developing a novel vascular access medical device for haemodialysis. In simple terms, it acts as a port into the patient’s bloodstream (via the arteriovenous fistula) for the dialysis machine, allowing the use of blunt/atraumatic cannulas instead of the painful and damaging dialysis needles that are currently used at each 3-times-per-week dialysis session. Patient experience will be vastly improved.

Key issues or challenges experienced during the start-up process

When we started out, our immediate goal was to prove that our device concept could actually work, technically. To achieve this, we needed two things: (i) Seed capital, to get going with designs and prototyping, and (ii) connections to partners with expertise in prototyping novel-shaped catheters.   

Key supports received during start-up process & the role WestBIC played

We began our journey with Enterprise Ireland's New Frontiers programme (ATU Galway), which allowed us to confirm the unmet clinical need (clinician interviews), structure our venture proposition (business plan), and formulate a project plan and budget. Atypically, we secured Enterprise Ireland Pre-Seed Start-up Funding (PSSF) before finishing New Frontiers, and so we had some capital to embark on hardware design, prototyping and bench testing. Fortunately, our CTO, Des Regan, was very well connected to various partners and experts for device prototyping.

WestBIC, Mary Ryan in particular, was instrumental in helping us fashion our business case and fine-tune the PSSF application. They also played an important sign-posting role, helping us with valuable connections and to understand the ecosystem in the West of Ireland and elsewhere across the nation.

Words of Advice for New Start-Ups

Persevere, persevere, persevere! The journey of a medtech start-up has many challenges, and if it were easy everyone would be doing it!

Smart deployment of limited capital: Stratos is intentionally a ‘lean start-up’, meaning we minimise ops costs (salaries etc.) and direct as much capital as possible towards advancing the technology. In MedTech, achieving convincing pre-clinical data is one of the main value inflection points that will unlock serious investor discussions; get there as optimally as is feasible.

Future Plans

Stratos is pre-revenue and still progressing its device through iterative prototypes and testing. We have a proof-of-concept sheep study planned for Q2 2026, which will provide a pivotal data point for the company. Validation that we’re on the right path includes: SeedCorn finalist; EIC Boost4Health winner; Portfolio company of Maine Venture Fund via the Future of Healthcare Founders Residency (Portland, Maine, USA).