Sofinnova Partners, a European venture capital firm specializing in Life Sciences, announced today the launch of MD Start III, which closed above its original target of €40 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.

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,” said 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.”