EnteroMedics and Leptos are both developing a device that uses electricity to treat obesity. But that’s where the similarities end, EnteroMedics CEO Mark Knudson told me in a quick phone call.

Leptos had raised at least $10 million from big venture capital firms like Thomas, McNerney Partners in Minneapolis, Technology Partners in Palo Alto, Calif. and Spray Ventures in Newton, Mass. Like EnteroMedics Inc. in Roseville, the company was developing a device that used electricity to manipulate signals between the brain and stomach.

EnteroMedics is dangling precariously off a cliff. Last fall, initial results from its Empower clinical study failed to meet the company’s goals.