It took Kandaswamy (Swamy) Vijayan, CEO of newly launched Plexium Inc., a few years to figure out where he needed to focus his creative energies. With an engineering background, he helped develop diagnostic tools. But he wanted to take the skill further. "For longest time, I thought diagnostics were the be all and end all," Vijayan told BioWorld MedTech.
DUBLIN – Sofinnova Partners closed its ninth early stage venture capital fund, Sofinnova Capital IX, at €333 million (US$369 million) and is bringing the same playbook to bear on current investment opportunities that it has followed in the recent past.
PARIS – Incepto Medical SAS, of Paris, raised $6.2 million from three French venture capital funds – Axa Venture Partners, Bpifrance through its Patient Autonome Fund, and Cap Decisif – to develop its artificial intelligence (AI) medical imaging platform. "This funding round is a first step toward accelerating [the] rollout of our [AI] medical imaging solutions on a grand scale throughout France," Incepto CEO Antoine Jomier told BioWorld MedTech.
TORONTO – A total of $1.4 million in capital funding from 12 U.S., Canadian and European angel investors will help Toronto-based Cohesys Inc. complete preclinical animal studies, with an eye toward gaining approval for its nontoxic, adhesive tape for rebuilding facial bones.
HONG KONG – South Korea's 3billion Inc., a rare genetic diseases diagnosis startup based in Seoul, has secured ?11.4 billion (US$9.6 million) in a series B investment. The company was founded in 2016 as a spinoff of Macrogen Inc., a Seoul-based genetic sequencing biotech, and raised ?3 billion in a series A funding last year.
HONG KONG – Accelmed, a group of health tech funds, has established a new venture capital fund named Accelmed Ventures II. The fund has the goal of raising and managing approximately $100 million for investment in Israeli and global pre-revenue health tech startups.
Australian digital medication management company Medadvisor Ltd. raised AU$17 million (US$11.4 million) via an oversubscribed placement in which U.S. health care solution provider HMS Holdings Corp. was a cornerstone investor, putting up $11 million and becoming the firm's largest shareholder with a 13% stake in the digital health company.
Houston-based startup Braincheck Inc. scooped up $8 million in series A funding in a round led by S3 Ventures and Tensility Venture Partners, along with True Wealth Ventures and Nueterra Capital. Braincheck launched its digital cognitive assessment tool in 2015 and a cognitive care planning solution in 2018, and now the company is looking to broaden its footprint with physician practices, hospitals and health systems. Proceeds from the financing will help to build the company's sales and marketing and clinical development teams in Houston, as well as production development staff in Austin.
PARIS – Carmat SA, from Vélizy Villacoublay, France, has just raised $66 million from European specialist investors in the life sciences and medical technologies sector.