There is a moment after a stroke when the rehab room goes quiet. Not because the work is finished, but because progress plateaus and the brain stops answering the knock. That silence is where Enspire...
There is a moment after a stroke when the rehab room goes quiet. Not because the work is finished, but because progress plateaus and the brain stops answering the knock. That silence is where Enspire DBS Therapy, Inc. decided to speak up. Founded in 2010 by Cleveland Clinic Innovations, this Cleveland born company emerged from real science, real patients, and the uncomfortable truth that standard rehab leaves too many people parked with chronic upper extremity impairment and no clear next move.
The origin story matters. Dr. Andre Machado was not chasing novelty or headlines. He was chasing recovery. His research at Cleveland Clinic showed that stimulating the cerebellar dentate nucleus while patients trained their arms could reengage dormant pathways years after a stroke. Not weeks. Not months. Years. Enspire exists because that insight refused to stay trapped in a journal and demanded a clinical future with accountability.
That future just picked up momentum. Enspire closed a $10.3M Series B1 led by Genesys Capital, with continued backing from Cleveland Clinic and JobsOhio Ventures. This builds on the $17.6M Series B raised in 2023, bringing total disclosed funding to $27.9M. The capital is not cosmetic. It is directed straight at enrolling the RESTORE pivotal trial, now active across multiple U.S. sites under an FDA approved IDE.
Scott Kokones has lived this world long enough to know where devices stall and where they scale. From Intelect Medical to Boston Scientific to Guide Medical Ventures, his career reflects discipline earned the hard way. Alongside co-founder Vince Owens and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Andre Machado, the team kept Enspire lean, clinical, and focused while delivering Phase I EDEN data published in Nature Medicine and advancing a complex DBS plus rehabilitation protocol into Phase II/ Phase III.
The therapy itself is the quiet flex. Commercially available Boston Scientific Vercise DBS systems. Five months of structured outpatient rehab. Chronic stimulation designed to enhance neuroplasticity after recovery supposedly flatlines. A median 7 point gain on the Fugl Meyer Upper Extremity scale in patients 1 to 3 years post stroke is not hype. It is physiology responding to precision.
Stroke affects roughly 800,000 people in the U.S. each year. Nearly 50% live with lasting disability. Enspire is not promising miracles. It is offering momentum where stagnation has been normalized. This raise is not about celebrating money. It is about refusing the idea that recovery has an expiration date and proving the nervous system can still be inspired to respond.