Sofinnova Partners, a European venture capital firm specialised in Life Sciences, has launched MD Start III, which closed above its original target of EUR40 million.
With this new medtech acceleration fund, Sofinnova Partners continues to reinforce its coverage across the Life Sciences sector, with funds operated by dedicated teams investing from seed to late stage.
MD Start was created 10 years ago by Sofinnova Partners and serial medtech entrepreneurs close to Sofinnova. It also had the early support of corporate leader Medtronic. Its first two vintages were raised as independent companies and served to prove the model for seeding and accelerating groundbreaking therapeutic medical device projects. As a result, MD Start created seven new companies. For this third, collaborative vintage, the MD Start team will operate as a fund managed by Sofinnova Partners.
“We are thrilled to be announcing this new vintage of MD Start now under the Sofinnova Partners’ umbrella, with an ambitious mission of bringing new therapeutic devices to patients in need, leveraging the expertise of our founding contributors and providing financial, managerial, operational and strategic resources to our newly formed companies,” says Anne Osdoit, Partner in charge of MD Start III.
MD Start has a unique business model. It sources medtech innovations at their origin, when they are still concepts, and works with clinicians to develop their inventions into companies. MD Start’s team is made up of seasoned medtech operators practiced in catalyzing early stage opportunities, accelerating their development and translating them to the clinic. It provides both the seed funding and the operational manpower to develop outstanding medtech projects into companies with strong fundamentals. This approach enables MD Start to bring to market innovative treatments addressing major unmet medical needs. It also allows for systematic de-risking of disruptive medtech projects in all key areas: clinical need and market sizing, intellectual property, technical feasibility, pre-clinical validation, regulatory and market access pathways – and ultimately initial clinical experience in patients.
“With the launch of MD Start III, Sofinnova Partners continues its unique life sciences strategy,” says Antoine Papiernik, Chairman of Sofinnova Partners. “Medtech has been a very successful component of our healthcare track record, with leading portfolio companies like Corevalve, Recor and Shockwave, and we are determined to continue founding future leaders in this field. MD Start’s acceleration model is now refined, and is a key piece of our strategy to invest across the entire life sciences value chain.”
MD Start III is fortunate to receive strong support from returning investors Bpifrance – through the French Tech Acceleration fund –, Medtronic, LivaNova, and several new investors including the European Investment Fund (EIF) and Baxter Healthcare Corporation. Additionally, it is supported by a number of world-renowned serial medtech entrepreneurs, all contributing significant resources and expertise.
