Signature Series: Building and Exiting Companies in Medtech's New Post-Covid Financial Era | LSI USA '25

Omar M. Khateeb  0:05  
All right. How's everybody doing today?

Raymond Cohen  0:09  
Post lunch, sleepiness. I think you look a little

Omar M. Khateeb  0:11  
bit little bit more energy. I want more energy. How's everybody doing today? That there we go. There you go. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for joining us. My name is Omar Khatib. I'm the founder of Khatib and CO which is a growth marketing agency. I'm also the host of state of Medtech. You guys probably see me on your LinkedIn news feeds. Very proud to be a partner up with LSI. So we're gonna be bringing a lot of the amazing market Intel and data into our show. You know, about a month or two ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Ray Cohen to a mutual friend, Scott Pantel. And, you know, I heard a lot of great things about Ray, and I said, you know, Ray, now that you've, you know, had this big exit from axonix, and you have a little more time, why don't you come on the show? So we met in Costa Mesa at a really nice little studio that we have there, and we had an amazing time, a great, great podcast. And I can tell you, Ray has very quickly become a fan favorite with my audience in the greater Medtech community. And so he was asked to do a signature series, and I got a call from Henry Peck, who said, Yeah, you know, Ray is going to be speaking at LSI. I'm like, yeah. I'm really excited. He said, Yeah. So we asked him, Who is choice to interview him? And he said, you and I said, Oh, who dropped out? He said, No, no, you're his first choice. So Brad, you know, from the bottom my heart, I want to say thank you so much, not just for the friendship, but the fact that you literally could have chose anybody, and you asked me to do this. So I appreciate it pleasure. So Ray, maybe before, before we jump right into some of the brass tacks, maybe tell the audience a little bit about yourself outside of being the CEO and founder of all these great companies like, who is Ray Cohen? Well,

Raymond Cohen  1:46  
I wasn't prepared for that question. Okay, Ray is a manic individual who is driven and loves, you know, medical devices and I've been in the business now for 44 years, and I've never worked for a large company, and I've always been on the entrepreneurial side and trying to build companies and figure out little gaps, and you know what's available or not available, and so forth. So I live locally. I have three sons and four grandchildren, so the whole idea is, just suffer through the kids to get to the grandchildren. Okay? Because that's the prize at the end. You know, that's the prize in the cracker jack box, right? So anyway, but love the business, and I've been fortunate to have a couple exits. But I'm not done. I want to stay in the game. I want to be relevant. I want to continue, and I'd like to be able to share my experiences and see if I can be helpful, you know, whether that's from mentoring board, from boardroom, helping people, you know, get the capital that they need, you know, leveraging the relationships that have been created over these years. So that's my story, in a nutshell. I appreciate

Omar M. Khateeb  3:15  
and Thanks for Thanks for rolling with the punches I say. So you know, first question want to ask you is one that actually we talked about, and I remember when you told me I did a double take, and I said, What? And I talked to some founders in the you know, before this, and I said, Yeah, this is the first question I'm gonna ask Ray. And they all said, How the hell did you do that? So, you know, recently had a great success with sonovi, got acquired by Boston Scientific for a 400 mil. The interesting thing is that when you and I were talking on the phone, you said, Oh yeah, and I did this without an investment banker. So a lot of founders, no offense, no offense to the investment bankers in the audience, but a lot of founders, they feel that they have to use an investment banker. So my question is, like one, why did you do that? And, more importantly, how did you do that?

Raymond Cohen  3:59  
So I mean, this is an interesting story, in the sense that, you know, the deal where Boston Scientific bought axonix was announced on January the something eight or something of 2024 and then we got tortured by the FTC for Literally, 11 months, 11 and a half months, and so now that was, that was, that was a tricky time, right to try to continue to keep a company going. Make your numbers as a publicly traded company, you got to beat your numbers every quarter and so on, so forth. So I had joined the board of this company earlier. Okay, so I was on the board, and, you know, I'm pretty geeked up about renal denervation as a therapy for reducing people's hypertension. So got involved with this company, which had, I think, a unique product, unique approach, a third generation approach. And. Was doing what I could to share my experience with with the company, with the CEO, and so on so forth. So I agreed to, literally the night that we closed our deal, I agreed to become chairman of that company, and knowing and having a really good relationship with the folks from Boston Scientific you know, having sold two companies to them, and now here I am as the chairman, which is important distinction between being on the board versus being the chairman, because as a chairman, you can speak on behalf of the company. And you know, had an opportunity to spend some time with Mike Mahoney, the Chairman and CEO of Boston, and Charlie Atlan, the head of business development, and basically, you know, said, Look, we're companies. Moved along nicely. We just started our pivotal study. And if you guys are interested in this asset, if you wait til the results come out on the pivotal study, then my obligation would be to run an octon and, you know, get the highest possible price and bid, bid the thing out. However, if you want to move, then we can do a deal now, and you can be pre emptive, we'll do a fair deal. And what do you think? Okay, thought about it for a couple days, came back and said, All right, here we go again. Let's do it. So that's kind of so I had the relationship. I knew the players. I didn't I didn't need I wasn't running an auction, okay? I had the buyer right there at the table. So why spend I mean, all due respect to all investment bankers, and I've got a lot of good friends, or investment bankers, you know? Why? Why? Why? Why pay them $6 million I mean that, you know? I mean it. You said it was a $400 million deal. It's 400 million up front and 200 million on the FDA approval. So it's a $600 million deal. So that's a $6 million fee. And why not save that money for the shareholders, right? And so that's, that's how it went down. So they wound up putting in a pre emptive offer. We shaped up the deal, and from the middle of December, we, you know, got it announced on whatever it was, march 4. So, you know, that's how it that's how it went down. So it's not, I'm not like prejudice against bankers. But if you're going to run an auction and you need to have multiple parties involved, and it's a big complication, fine, but if you you know, you got the buyer sitting at the table, you know, just, just get it done, and especially ever if you have the relationships, relationships are obviously really important, because people, you know, you need trust on both sides, and you need a win win deal. Too many people are looking for win lose deals, you know, and that's not how you get things done. You've got to be sensitive about what the buyer's perspective is. They need to be sensitive the seller's perspective. And there is a middle ground where both parties feel like I gave up a little more than I wanted to, I paid a little more than I wanted to, like, when you get to that point, you know, you got a good deal, right? And that's what makes the world go round. So, you know, I think that that's really the key, right? In the end of the day, no one should lose sight that we are in the people business. Sure, we're talking about technology and capital and all these complications, but in the end of the day, it's human to human man. It's people, either you. People trust you, they believe what you say or not. You know and and I think that's important. I think you have to have integrity. You have to be authentic, and you just got to say what's so and then people will want to do business with you. So that's, I think, been the key there. Now, it was a crazy week, and we'll get there. It just so happened that that deal got announced, and then another company that I'm on the board of went public. So I had an exit and a public offering, an IPO in the same week. I was kind of was it was a nice week on LinkedIn that week, but, you know, but it never happens that way, right? I mean, you work your whole career and two things like that would never happen in the same bloody week. Now, of course, you know, it's not like it happened overnight, right? I mean, all these things take time. So,

Omar M. Khateeb  9:17  
yeah, I mean, for, you know, just for, for the time. I mean, you did come on my show, before those things happen. So, I mean, that's true, yeah, that's right, you know,

Raymond Cohen  9:24  
that's right. I told you, stay tuned. There's more stuff coming.

Omar M. Khateeb  9:27  
So, you know, you talk a lot about this ability to identify gaps. And I think, you know, when you look at some of your companies, like vesics, axonix on it, sonovi, you know, there's this art, art and science, I think early on, of identifying when is the right moment to sell and how do you maximize value. And I think there's always this, this gap between the time you sell and maximum value, and just really closing that gap, how do you think about managing that? What's the mental framework that you have when it comes to going to things like that?

Raymond Cohen  9:59  
Well, I mean. Look, my basic philosophy is that the best time to sell a company is before early stage company, right that you've developed the product, and you've gone through the pain and suffering and, you know, done the animal work, got the clinical stuff, got the FDA to give you an IDE, you ran your study, all that other stuff. The best time to sell a company, in my opinion, is before you ship the first commercial product. It is a beautiful rose, fully bloomed. Lots of promise. Okay, that's the perfect time. You haven't screwed it up yet. Okay? Because early stage companies don't have the commercial bones, and they all think you're gonna, I build this great thing, and everybody's gonna come and so on. So they forgot that, oh, you need feet on the street. You need to be able to manufacture. You need to be you need, you know, you need all this stuff. And early stage companies just don't have it, right? So if you really want to get a return on your sweat equity, you gotta, you gotta get that thing sold, because if you want to go commercial, okay, you think you raised a bunch of money. Well, guess what? If you don't have $100 million in fresh capital, you're not going to be successful. Okay, you know? Or you're going to go out and you're going to go, Well, I don't really have the capital to deploy a big sales force, so I'm going to put 10 people, 20 people, and we're going to go and we're going to test it out and all that stuff. And by the way, that's the advice you're going to get from your venture advisors on the board. Don't listen to them. Okay, okay, because all you're going to prove is adoption is hard, and you're not going to light up the scoreboard. Okay, I mean that that is, that is my opinion. Now, that's not always possible, and sometimes you forced right to have to go and commercialize the product yourself at axonix. I didn't intend to commercialize that product. I mean, we built a great product. I'm like, Okay, let's try to exit the thing. But got an offer wasn't good enough, in my view, okay, wasn't good enough. I thought this one is going to be a big deal. And we went out and we instead took the company public in October 31, of 2018 axonix went public. We did not have revenue and we did not have FDA approval, but we got, we became public. Now, why? It's not because, you know, I'm a good storyteller. It was reimbursement. There was a existing monopolist in the market. They had a $500 million revenue line in the United States. They, you know, there was already the reimbursement was established. Didn't have to deal with that. And their product was nowhere near as good as what we had developed. Okay, we had a better product, a better mouse crap, but the elements were there. Okay, how's the addressable market? Well, much bigger than what it is today. So big addressable market. Yeah, that's the story. You gotta have a big story. Big Tam, right? Okay, and then you have to have a good storyteller to tell that story. And what is the definition of a good storyteller? Well, somebody who's done it before, great, somebody who's got the success, that's got some commercial bones that can can go out and talk about this. And you know, if you can take the company public, well, you can get the capital. You know that you really need people ask me, what was the use of proceeds? I said, Well, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to hire 100 sales people. We're not going to get approval for one more year. And we had some data. It was good data, blah, blah, blah, but you know, you go through the process, so I knew that would take a year before we got the FDA approval. So I said, we're going to hire these people, and here's what we're going to do. And I'm not only hire sales people, I'm going to hire clinical specialists as well, and I'm going to pay them, the sales people, $20,000 a month, and the clinical specialist $10,000 a month, and I'm gonna train them up. So if I wake them up at three o'clock in the morning, they can stand up and sing the company song and pitch the deal. Okay? We train these people for nine months on average. Right when the bell rang, we were ready to go, man. And people thought I was crazy. Nobody does that. Yeah, watch, okay, if you're going to, you want to, you want to be successful, you gotta have the money, you gotta have the tools, you gotta have the hutzpah to go out there and make that happen. Now, this is not really a big part of the story, but that was q4 of 2019 and some people here may remember that by the middle of q1 or towards the end of q1 in February, the world ended with COVID. Okay, wow. That was brutal. We sold in two and a half months, $26.5 million of the product. In two and a half months, we wound up selling $111.5 million in our first year during a global pandemic. Now that's not easy to do, but we lit up the scoreboard. We made a big impression. Stock started to fly. And, you know, we kept that string along, and I'm proud of the fact that we we had 20, just 20. Are 22 quarters in a row. At least 20 quarters in a row, we beat our numbers every quarter, which, if you're going to be public, you better beat your numbers, otherwise you're going to get hammered like nobody's business. So anyway, so that was the story there, right? But if you're going to do it, you got to do it the right way. You know, you got to have the capital. You got to be able to invest the capital. You got to have confidence. To have confidence in what you're up to, and you can't be afraid to deploy the right people. And it's all about people. In the end of the day, it's all about people. No one. I think I'm pretty smart, I'm a hard worker, all those other things, but shit, I can't you got to surround yourself with people that are expert in what they do, and they're driven and, you know, I mean, you need that team. Everybody needs a team of people around them, or it doesn't happen, you know. So that's my view.

Omar M. Khateeb  15:49  
Yeah, I love that. I want to, I want to just circle back and make a point about something you said, which is, you know, not only getting people ready nine points in event, in events, a lot of Medtech companies way too long, but you hired the best people. Because I remember during that time, I knew people that were joining, joining you guys, and I was thinking, I was like, you're paying all these people and they're not even commercial yet. Like, why are they doing that? I understood later on that you hire the best, paid them well, and you had nine months to get them ready, yeah. So when you know, when the you know, when the doors flung open, people ready. They knew exactly what to do and where, and it showed, you know, in the markets.

Raymond Cohen  16:24  
And it gets back to this early stage thing where people think, I'm going to go and I'm going to commercialize, but you all you're going to prove is that adoption is really hard and that you weren't able to like the scoreboard. We lit up the scoreboard with it was the second highest revenue number in the history of the med tech business in the first quarter post FDA approval. So you know, that's you, if you're gonna do it, man, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta do it in a big way. Now, of course, we were already public, so now you know you're out there and you can't disappoint. And you know, publicly traded CEOs, you know, you need to predict the future, and then you need to make it come true. You know,

Omar M. Khateeb  17:01  
so Well, you know, on that, on the note of going public, you know, one at one of the your conversations, kestra, yeah, they had a great IPO two and $3 million before when public. Those an interesting backstory to that. You know, you were speaking with a CEO to go public, and it didn't happen. And then you went in. I think you got five VCs that you knew you raised around about $105 million so one is, was that a crossover round? And then the second, the follow on to that is that when you decide to go public, when you decide that that's an attractive opportunity and the right thing to do for the company,

Raymond Cohen  17:34  
well, I think that, you know, there's a limit to how much venture capital you can raise. Now, in Castro's case, it was a PE back company. And a lot of money went in, into that company from one PE group. That's a little weird, but the point is that I was the case. So it was the idea of, okay, this is a company is making progress. It's looking pretty good. It was in a space that I was quite familiar with, you know, the idea of aware this product was a wearable defibrillator for, you know, post cabbage, post patients who have CHF, who are at risk, you know, frequent flyers back and forth. And you don't want people to have a cardiac arrest and die. So you wear this thing, you know, for three months while you're at maximum risk. So pretty, pretty cool idea. Good product, a monopolist in the space with a big revenue line. So a lot of similarities. Now, you kind of see the analogies and so forth. So I got drawn into the story because I was asked to help with diligence. Okay, so I helped scrub the deal down. Wound up, we put a syndicate together, we put the money in. It was nothing about crossover. This is not crossover investors. These were traditional venture capital investors who invest in many different stages in the companies, you know, these companies life. So, so it wasn't like, oh, put money in and we're going to flip this thing and go public. So we got the money in the deal. I joined the board, and then I began immediately with the CEO. Let's take it public. You know this, this is there is demand in the market. The market is open. Don't believe what people are telling you. I've worked with these institutional investors. They're all calling me to say, Hey, Ray, what's coming? What's new? All the good companies have been bought, and, you know, we're looking for new names, you know, small, you know, mid cap names and all that. So I knew there was demand. I knew there was demand. And so, you know, I was able to get the CEO to agree that this is, this is what we should do. And then we went hard, you know, at work to get prepared and do all the things you need to do. The company had audit financial statements. You know, it was revenue generating. Had about a $60 million revenue line at that time. So it fits the mold of what makes a decent IPO with the margins as good as they are going to be. No, you know, I mean, is a company burning a bunch of cash gas? Of course. I mean, you know, nobody's making money at $60 million in our business. You need. Need hundreds of millions to be able to make profit. But anyway, so there was, you know, got people around the table. Now, obviously those new investors who had just put cash in, they're like, Shit, yeah, let's go public. That's a great idea, right? And put it together. And then, of course, you know, made it appropriate selection of the banking Syndicate, okay? And then the management team went out, did test the water, meetings, set the stage, and then killed it on the IPO road show. And it was $150 million IPO, which got wildly over subscribed. And it wound up being $232 million an IPO de so far, the single most successful med tech, IPO, at least in the last, you know, six months, right? I mean, you know, of the three that have gone public, this one was, was the biggest hit. And today, imagine here, here you were a few months ago in a private PE backed company, you know, and the CEO and all the management got a lot of coupons. They got coupons, right? That's all they got paper. And now a company is worth $1.2 billion Okay, hi, wow, that's really cool. Now company has to execute, okay, right? Clearly, very important, right? But, you know, and it also traded really well in the aftermarket, went out at 17 above the range, over subscribed lot of demand, and boom, the stock is now. I looked today, there was like 2320 23 and a half dollars. So really nice. So, okay, beautiful story right now, it's still chapter one, right? Because now it has to live a public company life, and has to execute and make numbers every quarter and do all that. So, but, but it wasn't like quick flip money, you know, because every venture capital investor would love to put the last round into a company and then, you know, see it get sold or go public. But that's not always the case. So, so that's how it went down. And I'm thrilled that this happened. And it's, you know, it's great. So

Omar M. Khateeb  22:11  
you know, when we talk and you what I what I love about our friendship is that, you know, you share a lot of interesting stories and insights. I'm always learning from you. And one thing that we shared outside is that, you know, success life, nothing is ever linear, and so there's this talent that you've developed that I think it's so important for every entrepreneur, which is not just identifying the gaps, but more importantly, like, when do you exactly pivot your business model? There's a lot of promising projects that are not scalable companies. So how do you go about identifying that gap and saying, Yeah, this is the right time to pivot. Well, you

Raymond Cohen  22:43  
know, I'm gonna answer the question in a slightly different way, because there are two different types of projects out there. There are incremental projects, and then there are projects that can, you can form a company around, that actually can create a company. And sometimes people get confused, you know, I've got some incremental thing. Well, okay, good. Figure out who you should sell that to and how it can benefit that party, right? Because you're not going to be able to form a company around it. It may not be a big enough idea, or it may have a small Tam, right? The total addressable market is not as big. So that's the first thing you need. You need to do. And then the question was, well, how do you

Omar M. Khateeb  23:23  
go about, like, identifying that right time? Well, you know, because sometimes, you know there's, there's two, two cases, which is, things aren't going well. We just have to be more persistent and stick to it. And things are not going well, we need to change things.

Raymond Cohen  23:37  
I think that you need, you need to be pretty sober about all these things, and don't buy into your own BS, okay? And don't fall in love with your own plan and and so on so forth. You got to be more willing to move and pivot and do all that, right? But if you're an entrepreneur, and you're like all the people that are here, all the companies they hear, all the scientists and engineers and founders and so on. So you got to think about, okay, I'm doing this project, who is going to buy this thing? Who is the ultimate buyer? And you should figure that out before you start, okay, because this idea that I'm going to start something from scratch, and then ultimately, 357, 10 years later, I'm going to go out, and then I'm going to sell the product ourselves. Those are rare, those are rare stories, right? So you got to, you got to work backwards. Who's the potential buyer? When's the right time to talk with them, on and on and on and on, right? And then you kind of work backwards and figure it out. But if you're not thinking about the exit in the beginning, I think you're making a mistake, you know. And I think some people are afraid, you know, these days, strategic money, right? So it means, you know, right? Capital, as you all know, being invested by one of the bigger players. There's. There's mini strategics and there's big strategics, you know, turned out at axonix, we turned out to be a mini strategic, you know, because we were, you know, worth three and a half billion dollars right of a market cap. So you got currency that you could play with. So the point is that these days, it's okay to bring a strategic into your deal, and have them put some money in, as long as you don't do a right of first refusal, okay, which is a disaster. So give them an observation seat, a board observer seat. You put their they put some money in, and they can kind of pay attention to what's happening with the company over time. And so you've got your buyer sitting right there at the table. Now I could argue that maybe you want optionality, you know, you don't want strategic sitting there, whatever. But hey, you know, if I can do less work, okay, and the buyer is excited about this project, and they put their money in, and they like what you're doing. Well, okay, let's, let's, let's get it done. So I'm, hopefully I'm answering the question. It's so used to be that, if I, you know, having done this a long time, if I go back a decade or longer, any strategic money came with strings. They all wanted, they all wanted a right to buy it at a certain pre determined price, or first of right, first right of refusal, which is nonsense that just kills your ability to do anything with anybody, because nobody wants to bid against themselves. And then, you know, right? I mean, that doesn't make any sense, so, but today, they're more flexible and willing to put money in make a small bet. You know, whatever it is, 5 million, 10 million, you know, whatever the amount is, 15 million, whatever it's going to be, and then, and then just take an observation seat. So, or at least the Enlightened strategics, we'll do it that way.

Omar M. Khateeb  26:53  
One of the things that I'm noticing, you know, in a lot of your answers, in the more that we talk, is this theme about understanding the party you're dealing with, and that everything is, you know, you know, it's driven by people. It sounds obvious, but not so obvious. You know, I've noticed in your career that the teams, the investors, the acquirers, a lot of them are the same people.

Raymond Cohen  27:13  
It's like repeat offenders, right? Yeah, repeat offender. And, you know, being,

Omar M. Khateeb  27:16  
I'm a boy from Texas, I grew up watching a lot of great films out of New York. You're from New York, and the one theme that I always see from these movies, these movies in New York is that there's a big thing about your word is your bond and loyalty. In these days, how do you go about building out? How do you engender loyalty? 

Raymond Cohen  27:33  
Yeah, all right, that's a simple question. You treat people with respect, treat them the way you want to be treated, and you pay them really well, and you give them a piece of the pie. Okay, I'm going to get paid well, I'm going to equity stake in the company, and I'm working for people that, or a person, or people in a management team that care about people, that treat people well, treat them with respect, and are open book. And for me, that is the most important piece of the puzzle, is that if you're going to be a leader in a group, you need to tell people what the hell is going on. And if you're sitting in your office and the doors closed and the shades are pulled or whatever the expression might be, you know, people are like, What the hell is going on in that room? Okay, that's what you don't want, because absence of information for humans is the worst possible thing. And we all, if you just think about it, for second one, I'm saying, if we don't know the story as humans, we make up a story. We make it up, and it's always much, much worse than what is actually happening. So you got to be open and transparent with people and tell them what is so. And I use that funny expression because it's very powerful phrase, and it's not what's not a bunch of bullshit. This is what's happening. Here's where we are. I want to tell people the scariest stuff so they understand what's going on, and then say, here's the problem, here's what we're going to do about it, and let's work together and solve this and move on. Right? But you can't be afraid to tell people what's happening. You know, I think that's so important. That's how you engender loyalty. I think, right, you got to treat people, you got to pay them well, you got to give them an opportunity, and and so forth. And I've been very, very fortunate that in my career, I've met some very, very good, capable people, and I have kept those people as close to me as possible, and I've moved them into project to project, company to company, and it's been the secret, because you got to go fast. Okay, it's nonsense. Oh, you know, I met a bunch of people here, and my first question is, how long you been at this? Oh, yeah, seven years. Wow. The hell you doing? You gotta go, man, your time is of the essence. You know, time kills all deals, and also, time is of the essence. And you're going to burn money every day that you don't get to the promised land. You know, if you can't get to the clinic, if you can't get the. IDE approved, if you can't get the pilot done and get to the pivotal I mean, you burn in money and burn in time, and you know, you got it. You got to, you got to have a sense of urgency. And so when you meet people that can do good work, that are flexible, that can do more than one thing, right? They have capability, they're smart, they can do things, you got to have that sense of urgency. You got to produce results, and you got to get it done quickly, otherwise you're going to lose support of your board. And when we talk about a board, a board in an early stage company is filled with venture capital investors, okay, not independent operators, you know? You know. I mean, so that's who you're dealing with, and your money's sitting around that table, right? And they're in a hurry. So you want to make you want to be successful in this business, make money for your partners and provide a return on investment in the shortest possible time, because that's how they keep score. Okay? They don't want to plow, you know, 30 million into a deal and wait 10 years to get a return, right? It's if you can get the return quickly, they'll take a 3x return. If you can deliver it in two years, three years, right? You don't need a billion dollar exit if you can help circulate their money quickly. And guess what, if you do that, they're gonna line up to bet to back your next one, okay? Because that's how the world works, right? All right? A New York expression, right? You got to make money for your partners. That's what it's all about, right? And you can't. Nothing happens without capital. You need the capital. And the other thing I like to tell the folks who are running early stage companies, please don't talk about dilution. The hell are you talking about? 100% of nothing is nothing but 1% and you shouldn't get diluted down to 1% but 1% of a billion, that's life changing money for people. Okay, so, you know, I mean, you gotta, is it Sure, if you're the founder or CEO of the company or senior person, sure you want a three, 4% equity stake in the business, and try to kind of maintain that, but you can get re green, so to speak. As time goes on and you raise the next round, you get additional equity and so on and so forth. But you can't be afraid of dilution. You need the money. Get the money and get more money than you think you're going to need. That is the bottom line. I mean, we over capitalized axonix, like you can't believe when we sold the company. We had $360,360,000,000 on our balance sheet. Holy shit. We didn't need it, but I had it, and it was the damn good thing that I had it. Sorry if I were over time, because we got sued by Medtronic, okay, and it cost me five, five years, $30 million defending ourselves against a bullshit lawsuit that went to a jury trial, okay, went to a jury trial, and after eight days of deliberation in federal courthouse in Santa Ana, sorry, I Gotta stab him in

Omar M. Khateeb  32:58  
this I'm enjoying this. Sorry.

Raymond Cohen  33:02  
Okay, $30 million in lawyer fees, an eight day jury trial, and the judge sent people to deliberate over lunch. In one hour, they came back and said, It's all bullshit. Everybody go home. $30 million of harassment I got, I got three beers worth of stories to tell about that shit. Okay,

Omar M. Khateeb  33:24  
just, just wait, don't, don't waste silver beers. Come on my show so we can record, right? We didn't be

Raymond Cohen  33:29  
captured. But, you know, I mean, that is, that is bullshit. These large companies they pick, they pick on the smaller companies. And how do you defend yourself? You better have the capital to defend yourself. Okay? Otherwise you're gonna you're gonna get crushed as a competitive strategy. That's what it's all about. They want to slow you down. They want to provide misinformation in the marketplace, on and on and on and on. So you can tell I'm sorry, but I'm not. I leave it. I'm leaving with this, and I'm sorry if anybody here works for Medtronic. Okay, where the hell is the integrity in that company? Before nobody's gonna let me on stage anymore, because I just

Omar M. Khateeb  34:17  
can't. Ray, if you can't go anywhere, always know you can come, come to me on my show. There's always, as we wrap up, do we have time for questions or no, we have no time. So

Raymond Cohen  34:26  
just nobody wants to hear the next session.

Omar M. Khateeb  34:28  
You're gonna get mobbed after this, but,

Raymond Cohen  34:32  
but just still the next session,

Omar M. Khateeb  34:35  
in all, in all seriousness, I do want, I do want to say this, right? You know, I'll speak. I can. I feel like I can speak from, you know, not only for myself, but the people in this room, in our ecosystem, is that at this point, Ray Cohen does not need to work. You can sit back in your laurels, on the beach, enjoying your life, but you still choose to come back. Help companies. Spend time with us here, invest. Help more companies. Yeah, and the end result of all this is, sure, you know, people will make money and everything, but most important thing is that a lot of patients are gonna get their lives touched because

Raymond Cohen  35:07  
of that. And that's the point, right? Like, if you're in this business, I think all of us who are in this business, we really like the idea that we're helping other people, right, that what we do provides a better quality of life for the patients that we're getting involved in. And I've been very fortunate. I feel very honored that I've been involved in hundreds of 1000s of people have a better quality of life because of what my colleagues and I have been able to do in the hard work that we put in, and that that is that makes you sleep really well at night. Business is hard. We gotta deal with a lot of bullshit all the time, right? But if you know that you're helping people, then, then that's, that's a that's a good thing, that's a good business to be in. I'm very glad that I was lucky enough to fall into the medical device business. You know, 40 something years ago, didn't get in, like, the tobacco business or something. You can make money doing a lot of things, but we, you know, so everybody here should be, should have that and feel proud of the fact that, look, we're out there to help people and help them solve their medical problems or have a better quality of life, whatever the case might be. So I'm grateful to have an opportunity. I feel honored to be in the business, and I feel like now I want to give back. I want to I want to share my experiences and see if I can help other people to be successful. And I think that that's, you know, I'm not a religious guy, but that's how you were doing God's work, man, I mean, and God notes today, in 2025 in the United States of America, we need people who care about other people in this in this country, okay? And, that's not a political statement, okay? I'm a fiscal conservative, but you don't take a sledgehammer to the whole bloody country and just destroy it all overnight. That's not right. So anyway, sorry, don't,

Omar M. Khateeb  36:53  
don't, no. Thank you so much. Thank you. I mean, they're not going to let me back in on stage, you know? You know, go ahead, keep going 

Raymond Cohen  37:05  
At the end of the day, right? 

Omar M. Khateeb  37:06  
I'm sorry. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. 

Raymond Cohen  37:08  
The American what is the American dream, right? What is the American dream? It's being able to take advantage of the opportunity this country has. And I don't care if you're white and you look like me or you're Brown and you look like him, the fact is, the people who are going to be successful are the ones that are willing to pay the price and do the hard work, and it's worth it. And thank God we live in this country and we can still do that. So thank you, everybody.