Interview with Aurélie Viaux, Investment Director at Sofimac Innovation

Sofimac Innovation isone of the investors that participated in AcuSurgical's fundraising campaign, which raised nearly €6 millionfor its robot dedicated to retinal surgery. We meet with Aurélie Viaux, Investment Director. 

It was in May 2018, as part of funding from the SATT Axlr, the project began to take shape, leading two years later to the creation of the Montpellier-based start-up AcuSurgical. Two surgeons from Saint Etienne joined the team in the meantime to contribute their clinical expertise. Then, an OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography) imaging specialist was recruited to the team for a period of 12 months, thanks to the program. Companies on Campus. Philippe Poignet, as co-founder, will receive the 2020 MUSE Innovation Award.

Thanks to advanced robotics, AcuSurgical aims to make eye microsurgery safer and more accessible by significantly improving the precision of surgical procedures. The proof of concept for the robotic platform has already been demonstrated with an initial prototype validated at the preclinical stage.

With this round of financing led by Mérieux Equity Partners, Supernova Invest, Sofimac Innovation, and IRDI Capital Investissement, the company will conduct clinical trials and obtain regulatory approval for an initial indication, vitreoretinal surgery, paving the way for new applications for ophthalmic surgeons.

A AV: Can you summarize in a few lines what Sofimac Innovation is?
Sofimac Innovation is a member of the Sofimac Investment Manager Group (comprising Sofimac Innovation and Sofimac Région), which was created 40 years ago and is one of France's leading investors in start-ups and SMEs, with more than €750 million under management, including more than €400 million dedicated to innovation capital.

Our scientific expertise lies in engineering and health sciences. We also have a unique multi-regional presence (8 regional offices), which brings us close to innovation ecosystems and funded start-ups.

A AV: You recently invested in AcuSurgical through your new fund, Pertinence Invest 2. Can you tell us a little more about this fund and its strategy?
The Pertinence Invest 2 (PI2) fund was created in partnership with around 20 partner institutions, including engineering schools and universities in major innovation hubs. Its primary aim is to finance deep tech start-ups that have emerged from or are linked to the academic world.

We also wanted to involve major industrial companies, mid-sized companies, and SMEs in this fund so that they could develop relationships with our start-ups at an early stage as part of a supportive open innovation approach. As a result, groups such as bioMérieux, Michelin, and Seb, as well as some excellent mid-sized companies, have joined us to help accelerate the growth of our start-ups.

This fund currently has €41 million in assets, and we are aiming for a maximum size of around €50–70 million at the second closing. It invests at the pre-seed and seed stages, with the capacity to support its investments in subsequent rounds, in line with a patient capital approach.

A AV: Why did you choose to invest in AcuSurgical in the Montpellier area?
The start-up AcuSurgical is fully in line with Pertinence Invest 2's investment strategy, as its technology is the result of a collaboration between the LIRMM robotics laboratory (a joint research unit of the University of Montpellier and the CNRS) and ophthalmic surgeons at the Centre Hospitalier de St Etienne (Jean Monnet University).Furthermore, it also fits within the sectors we are targeting with this fund, as it is at the crossroads of healthcare, robotics, and AI.

Finally, Montpellier is an area where we have historically invested successfully in 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 have invested, what support are you providing to this start-up?
As part of AcuSurgical, we are working with Christophe Spuhler and his team to address all the technical and regulatory issues necessary to bring their product to market.

Generally speaking, once the investment has been made, we continue to work alongside the manager(s) to execute the development roadmap initially envisaged. We also serve as a sounding board for managers who want to challenge their decisions. We should really be seen as a trusted, long-term partner!

A AV: How do you identify the startups you finance?
Thanks to our regional offices, we are part of innovation ecosystems, which allows us to identify interesting projects at a very early stage. We also regularly act as advisors to certain startups until the fundraising project comes to fruition.

Furthermore, given the positioning of our fund, we work closely with universities and engineering schools to promote the creation of start-ups. This necessarily involves explaining the benefits of having a seed investor—we regularly strive to demystify our role! We also try to identify some key success factors and challenge even embryonic projects.

A AV: What are your goals for 2021?
We are convinced that French universities and engineering schools have significant potential for promoting and creating start-ups—we hope that this fund will enable us to be a driving force in this area. We are therefore working to expand our base of academic partners in areas that we believe are relevant. We are also working to create events in 2021 that will bring together the academic and industrial worlds, which are keen to interact more closely. This would also be a great opportunity to showcase our French laboratories.

Finally, we will continue to invest and play our role in supporting the economy as we have done since the first lockdown (9 investments made to date)!