Interview with Aurélie Viaux, Investment Director at Sofimac Innovation
Sofimac Innovation was one of the investors in AcuSurgical's €6 million fund-raising for its retinalsurgery robot. Interview with Aurélie Viaux, Investment Director.
In May 2018, as part of a project funded by SATT Axlr2 years later, the Montpellier-based start-up AcuSurgical was created. Two surgeons from Saint Etienne joined the team in the meantime to contribute their clinical expertise. A specialist in OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography) imaging will be added to the team over a 12-month period, thanks to the AcuSurgical program. Companies on Campus. Philippe Poignet, as co-founder, will receive the MUSE 2020 Innovation Award.
Thanks to advanced robotics, AcuSurgical aims to make ocular microsurgery safer and more accessible by considerably improving the precision of surgical gestures. Proof of concept for the robotic platform has already been achieved, with a first prototype validated at a pre-clinical stage.
With this round of financing led by Mérieux Equity Partners, Supernova Invest, Sofimac Innovation and IRDI Capital Investissement, the company will carry out clinical trials and obtain regulatory approval for its first indication, vitreoretinal surgery, paving the way for new applications for ophthalmic surgeons.
A AV: Can you give us a brief overview of Sofimac Innovation?
Sofimac Innovation is a member of the Sofimac Investment Manager Group (comprising Sofimac Innovation and Sofimac Région), which was founded 40 years ago and is one of France's leading investors in start-ups and SMEs, with over €750 million under management, including more than €400 million dedicated to innovation capital.
Our scientific areas of expertise are engineering sciences and healthcare. We also have a unique multi-regional positioning (8 regional offices), which brings us close to innovation ecosystems and funded start-ups.
A AV: You recently invested in AcuSurgical through your new Pertinence Invest 2 fund. Can you tell us a little more about this fund and its strategy?
This Pertinence Invest 2 (PI2) fund was created in partnership with some twenty partner institutions, including engineering schools and universities in major innovation areas. It aims to give priority to financing deeptech start-ups that have emerged from or are linked to the academic world.
We also wanted to involve major manufacturers, ETIs and SMEs in this fund, so that they could develop relationships with our start-ups at an early stage, as part of a benevolent open innovation approach. Groups such as bioMérieux, Michelin and Seb, as well as some very fine ETIs, have joined us to help accelerate the growth of our start-ups.
To date, the fund has been endowed with 41 million euros, and we are aiming for a maximum size of around 50 - 70 million euros at the second closing. It operates at the pre-seed and seed stage, with the capacity to support its investments in subsequent rounds, as patient capital.
A AV: Why did you choose to invest in AcuSurgical in the Montpellier area?
The AcuSurgical start-up is fully in line with Pertinence Invest 2's investment strategy, since it is a technology resulting from a collaboration between the LIRMM robotics laboratory (a joint research unit of the University of Montpellier and the CNRS) and ophthalmic surgeons from the Centre Hospitalier de St Etienne (Jean Monnet University).It also fits in with the sectors we're targeting with this fund, since we're at the crossroads of healthcare, robotics and AI.
Last but not least, Montpellier is a region in which we have historically invested successfully with Microphyt, Bulane and Algodone. We believe that the potential for innovation is very strong, and the start-up AcuSurgical is a fine example of this.
A AV: Now that you've invested, how do you support this start-up?
As part of AcuSurgical, we work with Christophe Spuhler and his team to address all the technical and regulatory issues involved in bringing their product to market.
Generally speaking, once the investment has been made, we remain by the side of the manager(s) to execute the development roadmap envisaged at the outset. We also act as a mirror for managers who wish to challenge their decisions. You really need to see us as a trusted, long-term partner!
A AV: How do you identify the start-ups you finance?
Thanks to our regional presence, we are part of the innovation ecosystem, which enables us to detect interesting projects at an early stage. In fact, we regularly act as advisors to certain start-ups until the fund-raising project becomes a reality.
In addition, given the positioning of our fund, we work closely with universities and engineering schools to encourage the creation of start-ups. This necessarily involves explaining the advantages of having a seed investor - we regularly fight to demystify our role! We also try to provide key success factors and challenge even embryonic projects.
A AV: What are your objectives for 2021?
We're convinced that French universities and engineering schools have enormous potential for value-addition and start-up creation - and with this fund, we want to be a driving force in this area. We are therefore working to broaden the base of our academic partners in territories that seem relevant to us. In 2021, we're also working on creating events that will bring together the academic and industrial worlds, which are keen to work more closely together. This would also be a great way of highlighting our French laboratories.
Finally, we will continue to invest and play our role in supporting the economy, as we have done since the first containment (9 investments to date)!