Kirt Kirtland
Managing Director
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- Full Name
- Kirt Kirtland
- Title
- Managing Director
- Firm
- Emergent Medical Partners (EMP)
- Firm Type
- Early-stage venture / angel investing (medical device & life sciences)
- Investment Stage
- Seed and early stage
- Sector Focus
- Medical devices and life sciences — cardiovascular, general and orthopedic surgery, cardiology, radiology, oncology, obesity/metabolic, gynecology, urology, sleep disorders, ENT, and neuromodulation
- Geographic Focus
- United States (Bay Area–centric)
- Location
- San Jose / Mountain View, California (San Francisco Bay Area)
Background
Kirt Kirtland is a Managing Director at Emergent Medical Partners, a Mountain View, California–based early-stage venture and advisory firm founded in 2007 to identify, fund, and help bring to market innovative medical devices. The firm was co-founded by the late medical-device pioneer Dr. Thomas J. Fogarty (inventor of the Fogarty balloon catheter), and Kirtland works alongside the leadership team that includes Robert Brownell and Kathy Tellyer.
Kirtland is an experienced CEO, medical-device management professional, and investor with more than 25 years in the industry, including 15+ years in C-level roles. Before joining EMP's investment side, he held operating positions across operations, marketing, engineering, and sales, and served as chief executive of multiple medical-device companies. His hands-on domain experience spans orthopedics, gynecology, urology, cardiology, gastroenterology, and otolaryngology, giving him a working command of the clinical, operational, regulatory, legal, and financial aspects of scaling life-science companies.
In his role at EMP, Kirtland sources and diligences deals in conjunction with the other partners, negotiates acquisitions, and serves as a board member or board observer at portfolio companies, providing operational and strategic guidance to founders.
He earned an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business and a B.S. in biology from Stanford University. He is also a retired Captain in the U.S. Navy.
Investment Thesis & Focus
- Invests at the seed and early stage in medical-device and life-science startups, typically nascent companies with strong management teams and demonstrable clinical efficacy.
- Backs teams solving hard clinical problems across a broad range of specialties — cardiovascular, surgical, orthopedic, oncology, metabolic/obesity, diagnostics, neuromodulation, and drug-device combinations.
- Brings deep operational and regulatory expertise as part of the check: the firm positions itself to help founders navigate FDA/regulatory pathways, reimbursement, and commercialization — not just to provide capital.
- Values a clear clinical-efficacy story and a management team capable of executing a device from bench through market; Kirtland's own operating and CEO background makes him a hands-on, board-level partner.
Notable Investments
- Evalve — percutaneous cardiac (mitral) valve repair; acquired by Abbott Vascular (Oct 2009).
- Ardian — renal-denervation therapy for hypertension; acquired by Medtronic (Jan 2011).
- Twelve — transcatheter mitral valve replacement; acquired by Medtronic (Aug 2015).
- Cianna Medical — SAVI breast-cancer localization/therapy; acquired by Merit Medical (Nov 2018).
- Focal Therapeutics — surgical tissue-marking devices; acquired by Hologic (Oct 2018).
- Nanostim — leadless/miniaturized cardiac rhythm device; acquired by St. Jude Medical (Oct 2014).
- Reverse Medical — endovascular stroke/vascular devices; acquired by Covidien (Aug 2014).
- Crux Biomedical — retrievable vena cava filter; acquired by Volcano Corp (Dec 2012).
- CyberHeart — non-invasive robotic cardiac ablation; acquired by Varian (Apr 2019).
- Sonoma Orthopedics — minimally invasive bone-fracture fixation; acquired by Arthrex (Jul 2017).
- HeartFlow — non-invasive FFR analysis from CT scans (active).
- Avinger — image-guided catheters for peripheral arterial disease (NASDAQ: AVGR).
- EBR Systems, Fractyl, Relievant MedSystems, Shape Memory Medical, Standard Bariatrics, Intuity Medical, Arterys — active portfolio companies across cardiac, metabolic, pain, vascular, bariatric, and diagnostics.
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