Dave Johnson

Founder and CEO Icarus Medical

Last Reviewed: September 24, 2026

Executive Summary

Dave Johnson is the founder and CEO of Icarus Medical, a Charlottesville, Virginia company that designs and manufactures orthopedic braces, led by the Ascender Knee Brace. He did not come from the medical device industry. He trained as a chemical engineer and spent his early career in federal government, including roles at the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. A high school football injury left him with very little cartilage in one knee, and when he could not find a brace that relieved the pain he designed his own. He funded the company himself from 2015. In June 2026 it closed an oversubscribed $7.2 million Series A.

Career Highlights

• Founder and CEO of Icarus Medical, which designs and manufactures its braces in Charlottesville.
• Closed a $7.2 million Series A in June 2026, above the original $5 million target, with investors including OSF Ventures.
• Icarus Medical won the Charlottesville Business Innovation Council’s 2026 Startup of the Year Award.
• Icarus Medical was named to the Inc. 5000 after 1,283% three-year growth.
• Before Icarus, he was a chemical engineer at the Department of Homeland Security working on chemical-weapons regulation, and he worked on WMD non-proliferation at the State Department from 2017 to 2018.

Professional Journey

Johnson grew up on a dairy farm in Washington state. He graduated from Tulane University in 2004 with a degree in chemical engineering and then earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering at the University of Virginia. According to a 2020 UVA Today profile, he worked for the Department of Defense in Charlottesville for about ten years. In 2015 he became a chemical engineer at the Department of Homeland Security, working as a chemical weapons expert on a policy regulating chemicals that could be used as weapons. He also spent 2017 to 2018 at the State Department on weapons of mass destruction non-proliferation.

Icarus grew out of his own injury. Knee surgery in 2014 revealed how much cartilage damage a high school football injury had caused. He did not want to wait decades for a knee replacement, so he designed a brace that unloads the knee instead of just stabilizing it. He named the company after the solar satellite in the James Bond film “Die Another Day”, reusing a name he had first given an earlier non-profit solar venture. He paid for the company himself from 2015 and developed the brace through the Catalyst accelerator at UVA’s Darden School of Business, with guidance from UVA orthopedists, kinesiologists and orthotics specialists. By early 2020 he was starting to look for investors. He was also doing pro bono work for Wounded Warriors and with local Charlottesville residents who tested the brace.

Icarus Medical now sells a range of knee, full-leg and ankle braces, all made in the USA. The Ascender is aimed at patellofemoral and multicompartment knee osteoarthritis, and other products address post-operative recovery, neurological conditions and complex lower-limb mobility problems. The company says its products combine biomechanics, software and additive manufacturing. In June 2026 the Charlottesville Business Innovation Council named it Startup of the Year. Later that month Johnson announced an oversubscribed $7.2 million Series A. OSF Ventures, the venture arm of the OSF HealthCare system, took part after its clinicians evaluated the product. He is an avid snowboarder.

Education

Tulane University

Chemical Engineering, 2004

University of Virginia

Master’s degree, Chemical Engineering