Scott Kokones

The Wire, The Room, The Wait

Deep brain stimulation, for most of its clinical life, has been a Parkinson's story. A pacemaker for the brain, wired into the subthalamic nucleus, dampening the tremor. Scott Kokones has spent the last sixteen years arguing the same hardware, aimed a few centimeters away, at a different structure, in a different patient, could give back the use of an arm.

He runs Enspire DBS Therapy, a clinical-stage medical device company based on Cleveland's East Ninth Street and spun out of the Cleveland Clinic. The therapy pairs an implanted lead in the cerebellum's dentate nucleus with a structured course of physical therapy. Turn the stimulator off, do the rehab; then turn the stimulator on, do more rehab. The bet is that the electrical input plus the physical work does something neither alone would do. This is not a small bet. It is the entire company.

The first proof came out of a study called EDEN. Twelve patients, all with moderate-to-severe hemiparesis of the upper extremity, all one to three years out from a middle cerebral artery stroke. They had electrodes implanted at the Cleveland Clinic, recovered, and then went through several months of physical therapy - first with the device off, then with it on. The company doesn't call the results dispositive. It calls them enough to fund the next thing.

A Second Series B, In Case The First Wasn't Clear

Enspire raised $17.6M in a Series B in August 2023, led by the Cleveland Clinic itself with the JobsOhio Growth Capital Fund. That money launched RESTORE, the pivotal trial - the FDA-relevant one, the one meant to produce the safety and effectiveness dataset a marketing application needs. In January 2026 the company added $10.3M in a Series B1, led this time by Genesys Capital, with Cleveland Clinic and JobsOhio again on the check. Jamie Stiff of Genesys took a seat on the board. Kokones's public statement was the language a CEO uses when he wants the next round to feel like a milestone, not a rescue:

Interim data from RESTORE is scheduled for mid-2027. The clock, in other words, is public. Investors and the FDA will read the same page at approximately the same time. If the numbers show what EDEN suggested, Enspire has a plausible path to becoming the first stroke DBS therapy on the American market. If they don't, Kokones will have spent seventeen years finding out.

Funding Arc

The CV Nobody Reads Aloud

Kokones is a University of Michigan mechanical engineer by training, a Boston University MBA by finish, and a career neuromodulation operator by choice. Before founding companies, he was a Medtronic engineer, then at Enpath Medical, then Boston Scientific, then Intelect Medical - which is to say, the entire lineage of implantable stimulation hardware in the United States passes through his resume. When he stopped joining companies, he started stacking them.

Timeline

• Early CareerEngineering roles at Medtronic and Enpath Medical.
• Mid CareerNeuromodulation product work at Boston Scientific and Intelect Medical.
• 2010Co-founded Enspire DBS Therapy in Cleveland with Cleveland Clinic involvement.
• 2011Co-founded Guide Medical Ventures as a general partner.
• 2013Co-founded CardioSolv Ablation Technologies.
• 2014Took CEO title at Enspire DBS Therapy publicly.
• 2017Co-founded Qr8 Health for digital neurological assessments.
• Aug 2023Closed $17.6M Series B; launched RESTORE pivotal trial.
• Jan 2026Closed $10.3M Series B1 led by Genesys Capital; Jamie Stiff joined the board.
• Mid-2027RESTORE interim data expected.

On the Rationale

The sentence is careful and it is the point. Enspire is not selling a device. It is selling a therapy protocol - hardware plus a rehab regimen, delivered in the right sequence, over the right months. The FDA is being asked to authorize the combination. Kokones has structured a decade and a half of work to line up behind that specific ask.

What Makes The Setup Unusual

Most Series B CEOs run one thing. Kokones is simultaneously the operator at Enspire, a general partner at Guide Medical Ventures, and a co-founder on the letterhead at two other companies. He does not appear on podcast circuits. His Twitter is blank. There are no keynote-speaker headshots on conference websites. His public artifacts are press releases from PR Newswire and a LinkedIn page with a modest photograph. In a founder economy that runs on personal brand, he has built a company brand instead.

The Cleveland part matters more than it looks. Enspire lists a Boston connection through Kokones's residence and the Boston University MBA, but the company sits at 1300 East Ninth Street in downtown Cleveland, at Cleveland Clinic's front door. The clinical trial site is the clinic. The lead investor across two rounds is the clinic. This is not a startup that borrowed a research collaboration; it is a startup that was assembled around one.

Reading the Cap Table

The Enspire investor list is short and it is deliberate. Cleveland Clinic. JobsOhio Growth Capital. Genesys Capital. An undisclosed investor from the 2023 round. There is no growth-stage generalist crowd, no marquee Sand Hill Road name. That is unusual for a Series B medical device company - and consistent with a company whose story is inseparable from its clinical partner. Kokones has not raised money from investors who want a fast exit. He has raised money from investors who want the trial to read out.

The Question That Actually Matters

There are roughly 800,000 strokes a year in the United States. A significant fraction leave patients with chronic upper-extremity motor impairment. Standard rehab helps in the first months and then flattens. If Enspire's therapy works - and if the FDA agrees it works - the addressable population is measured in millions of survivors already living with disability. Kokones has been talking about this population since Barack Obama's first term. Sixteen years later, twelve patients in a proof-of-concept study became a $17.6M check, which became a pivotal trial, which became a $10.3M follow-on, which becomes an interim readout in mid-2027. The line, from a distance, looks straight.

Whether it stays straight is the story to keep watching.