A newly merged company focused on helping patients recover from strokes has emerged in Van Nuys.

Earlier this month, two companies focused on providing tech-enabled therapy and services to stroke patients merged: Van Nuys-based Neurolutions Inc., which has developed brain-computer interface technology, and Campbell-based telehealth and remote monitoring company Kandu Health.

The newly combined company, which has taken the name Kandu Inc., is headquartered in Van Nuys, and has about 80 employees. At its helm is Leo Petrossian, who until the merger was chief executive of Neurolutions. Kirsten Carroll, the chief executive of Kandu Health, is now the chief marketing officer for the company.

Simultaneously announced on April 8 with the merger was the closing of a $30 million financing round, led by New York-based Ally Bridge Group and Fremont-based AMED Ventures. The money will support the commercialization effort of the Neurolutions brain-computer interface technology along with an expanded suite of services for recovering stroke patients.

Developing separate paths to treat stroke patients

Neurolutions was founded in 2007 around the development of non-invasive brain-computer interface technology to treat patients who suffered from strokes. The technology uses electroencephalographic signals from the unaffected side of the brain that are captured in a helmet-like device and then transmitted to a wearable device around the hand and arm affected by the stroke. The aim is to improve the motor functions of stroke patients.

Other electrostimulation devices under development to treat stroke patients generally involve surgical implantation of electrodes inside the brain or spinal cord. The Neurolutions approach does not involve surgery.

In 2020, Neurolutions’ technology received breakthrough device designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Meanwhile, in 2022, Kandu Health was spun out of Campbell-based Imperative Care, a medtech company that uses connected innovations to augment care for people suffering from stroke or other vascular diseases.

Kandu Health’s focus has been exclusively on technologies to help patients recover from strokes once they are sent home from hospitals or other acute care facilities.

Historically, post-acute stroke care has been fragmented and largely short-term, leading to degradation of patient quality of life and more frequent return visits to hospitals, the announcement said.

“Despite years of improvements in stroke treatment technology and acute intervention, our system of care has not yet produced meaningful improvements in patients’ functional outcomes following hospital discharge,” Demetrius Lopes, a neurosurgeon with Charlotte, North Carolina-based Advocate Health, said in the announcement.

By combining the infrastructure and technologies of the two companies, the hope is that Kandu Inc. can provide a full range of services to stroke survivors, according to the merger announcement.