Image Credit: Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Parasol Med Tech announced an oversubscribed $2.75M pre-seed round on October 26, 2026. The funding will go toward R&D and testing, iterating, and optimizing the company’s catheter and gel system for sealing the left atrial appendage. The technology comes from research at the University of Chicago.
The target is atrial fibrillation (AFib), an irregular and often rapid heart rhythm. In AFib, clots can form in the left atrial appendage, and the condition raises stroke risk roughly five-fold. The company cites an estimate that it affects nearly 5% of U.S. adults.
Atman Shah, an interventional cardiologist and professor of medicine at UChicago, founded Parasol and serves as chief medical officer. Evan Singer is president and CEO. Shah says he has closed more than a thousand of these appendages and has seen where current devices fall short: leaks around the implant, clots forming on the device, and patients left on blood thinners they struggle to tolerate. Parasol’s approach is to conform to each patient’s anatomy.
The company says the system is tailored to the individual and, unlike today’s leading devices, leaves no metal behind. UCM Ventures’ executive director Hannah Levine highlighted the novelty and also noted that most AFib cases go untreated today.
The round included Harper Court Ventures, UCM Ventures (the venture arm of the University of Chicago Medical Center), and Cardiovascular Innovation Ventures (the venture arm of the American College of Cardiology). Harper Court launched in 2025 to back early-stage companies from UChicago labs, the Polsky Center, or alumni founders.
Parasol’s path ran through the Polsky Center. Shah worked with the center’s IP and device engineering staff to turn the concept into a CAD model, and later won a proof-of-concept grant. He also completed the Polsky I-Corps program in 2024 and continued into the national I-Corps program. In 2026, Parasol was awarded $250,000 from the George Shultz Innovation Fund. The company has now joined the UChicago Science Incubator.
The company is still in development and has not yet reached human patients. Shah says the funding takes it through the next stage of testing and closer to that point.
Source:
Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Founded by UChicago Cardiologist, Parasol Secures $2.75M for Novel Medical Device to Improve Stroke Prevention
