A lot has changed for John Slump since he was on campus in 2022 for the University of Iowa John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center (Iowa JPEC) Innovation and Inspiration Speaker Series.

• Surgical Innovation Associates (where he was CFO) was acquired by Integra LifeSciences (NASDAQ: IART) for up to $140 million (December 2022).
• Attune Medical (where he was CFO and co-founder) was acquired by Haemonetics (NYSE: HAE) for $160 million plus contingent consideration over the next three years (April 2024). 
• Slump became a first-time CEO at Atraverse Medical, a left-heart access device startup based in San Diego, which was co-founded in July 2022 by Slump and two others with connections to the University of Iowa — Dr. Steven Mickelsen (Electrophysiology Fellowship, July 2014) and Eric Sauter (BS engineering, May 2013).
• He was recruited to be CFO at Volta Medical, an artificial intelligence (AI) technology for cardiac ablation guidance headquartered in Marseille, France. (Yes, he has two jobs.)

A cherry on top is that Slump has been named recipient of the Alumni Entrepreneurial Leadership Award by Iowa JPEC and will be recognized at the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Honors event Oct. 11.

“I’m having some fun and staying busy,” Slump said. “It’s cool to be recognized by my alma mater.”

Slump graduated from the University of Iowa in May 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in finance with a certificate in entrepreneurship. In the 16 years since receiving his diploma, Slump has been associated with three medical device companies that exited for more than $100 million each — FARAPULSE fka Iowa Approach ($800 million), Attune Medical ($160 million), and Surgical Innovation Associates ($140 million). He now has more than $1 billion of exit transaction value and has raised more than $200 million in startup financing on his journey.

A native of Sioux City, Iowa, Slump attended the University of Iowa because of the allure of a great education at a good value. During a class called New Business Formation, Slump and his friend, Jared Garfield, created a business plan for a medical device designed to make chemotherapy medication preparation and delivery safer. 

With support from David Hensley, then executive director of Iowa JPEC, and Lynn Allendorf, director of Iowa JPEC, Slump and Garfield launched Corvida Medical and occupied office space in the Bedell Entrepreneurship Learning Laboratory, and subsequently, the University of Iowa Research Park.

“Iowa JPEC supported us on our business plan circuit, and we went out and were awarded approximately $100,000 from business plan competitions over a couple of years,” Slump said. “This was my first foray into the medical device business as a 20-year-old. Over the course of 10 years, we went on to raise more than $25 million of private investment in addition to $5 million of grant funding from the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.”

It wasn’t easy.

Slump participated in “everything that was offered” from an Iowa JPEC competition perspective.

“We cleaned up and won a lot of awards,” he said. “We won the Tulane competition; Jared did one where he got to ride in a race car around the Indy 500 track, and we won that one. We went to Idaho, got money there, and also won money in Fort Collins, Colorado; we were going national and flying all over the place. Probably one of the bigger awards that we won was $30,000 from Innovate Illinois in 2009. I was 23 and the top presenter out of 130 entrepreneurs.”

Slump recalls the financial reality as a young entrepreneur attempting to fund the travel required to attend events and pitch opportunities.

“I had these credit cards, and I would use them to travel and pitch my company to whomever would listen,” Slump said. “We would get the competition prize money and reimburse our travel expenses, but instead of paying off the credit cards, I would use the money to buy diapers for my son and to pay rent. I did this for more than two years and racked up more than $50,000 in credit card debt. At the end of 2009, we closed a $2 million Series A and got to negotiate employment agreements and got on salary — we were stoked.”

That relentless drive and risk-taking paid off. 

After overcoming financial hurdles and bootstrapping his way through the early years, Slump’s persistence has been rewarded with immense success. 

In two years at Atraverse, he has raised more than $16.5 million, while growing the company to 12 employees. With FDA clearance for its first product, the HOTWIRE™, in May 2024, Slump's trajectory continues upward. Atraverse is now in the midst of a limited market release and has demonstrated the safety and effectiveness of the HOTWIRE™ device in a myriad of clinical procedures. 

At the same time, Slump serves as CFO of Volta Medical, where he has sourced more than $36 million of venture capital. The funds have been used to conduct a randomized controlled trial (TAILORED-AF) to evaluate the performance of Volta’s AI-based software solutions in assisting electrophysiologists during atrial fibrillation ablation procedures. The company recently announced the results of the TAILORED-AF study, which demonstrated superiority in freedom from AF at 12 months utilizing a tailored cardiac ablation guided by AI as compared to pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) alone.

“I’ve been doing two to three device companies at the same time for nearly 20 years,” Slump said. “This is all I have ever known. I’m incredibly excited to be in my first CEO role, but I want to pay homage to my co-founders, Eric Sauter and Dr. Steven Mickelsen. They are the idea guys, and Sauter, who is also COO for Atraverse, has worked tirelessly to advance our products from the R&D bench to the patient bedside in just two years, a remarkable achievement for an intravascular device. I wouldn’t have had this opportunity if it wasn’t for them.” 

Since obtaining FDA clearance, Atraverse’s HOTWIRE™ left-heart access device has enjoyed a welcome reception from the electrophysiology and interventional cardiology arenas, and several key-opinion-leading physicians are now using the device clinically.

As he prepares to accept the Alumni Entrepreneurial Leadership Award, Slump reflects on what got him to this point. 

“The education and preparation I received at the University of Iowa, and the support from Iowa JPEC, has been foundational in my success,” he said. “I have worked hard—and will continue to work hard—to take the lessons I have learned here to continue to pioneer and commercialize innovative medical technologies that benefit patients around the world.”