Click Medical CEO and co-founder Jimmy Capra helped start Click Medical in Steamboat Springs five years ago. (File photo)

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Persistence has paid off for Steamboat Springs-based Click Medical and its CEO and co-founder Jimmy Capra, who recently learned his business has been awarded a $152,500 grant from the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade’s Advanced Industries Accelerator Grant Program.

“It was our third application to the Advanced Industries Committee,” Capra said. “What is interesting is that in the two previous entries that we did were quite a few years ago, we really weren’t ready. We were still kind of figuring out who we are, but this time, we knew that, and we were able to articulate that well for the committee.”

Click Medical was among 83 Colorado businesses that applied for the grants. Those applications were reviewed by committees made up of business, technical and financial experts, as well as an industry-specific reviewer. The committee chose 24 companies that were invited to participate in a pitch session with the Advanced Industry Committee, which saw promise in the Steamboat Springs business and its impact on the local economy.

“This is a pretty good-sized one, especially for a company that is not based in the metropolitan area, and that adds to it,” said Steamboat Springs Chamber Economic Development Director John Bristol of the grant. “The impact is about economic diversification … We are talking about diversifying across the different industries in Routt County, and that’s what is important. Communities don’t want to be too dependent upon a single sector.”

Click Medical was started about five years ago and provides technology to control the fit and comfort of orthotics and prosthetic devices with the twist of a dial. Capra said the grant validates his company’s mission to provide life-changing products and empower amputees with the ability to manage their own comfort, which Capra said greatly improves their lives and helps save millions of health care dollars that are normally wasted from people abandoning their sockets.

He said the money from the grant will be used to grow the company in the town he loves.

“We really earmarked three specific projects that we are going to be executing on,” Capra said. “Part of it is working within the medical system to get the appropriate insurance codes in place, part of it is expanding our education program and part of it is really expanding our market reach.”

Capra said Click Medical will receive funds as it continues to meet particular milestones set forth in the grant.

“Jimmy and his team are a prime example of the entrepreneurial spirit and activity we want to nurture in Steamboat in order to diversity our economy across multiple industry sectors — especially ones that pay above average wages,” Bristol said. “Facilitating investments for our startup companies helps accelerate commercialization and business development. This $152,000 and recently another $45,000 in international business development funding is working to strengthen our local businesses’ position in the marketplace.”

Bristol added that startups often have to apply for grant funding more than once.

“It’s not unusual,” Bristol said. “It’s part of the process when you are thinking about economic development and business development. The committees are trying to encourage businesses to improve. It’s the growth process where they say, ‘Go back to the drawing table and try this again.’”

To reach John F. Russell, call 970-871-4209, email jrussell@SteamboatPilot.com or follow him on Twitter @Framp1966.