Sofinnova Partners Announces Two First Investments from its MD Start III Medtech Acceleration Fund
2.7.2020 08:00:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
Sofinnova Partners, a leading European life sciences venture capital firm based in Paris, London and Milan, announced today the second investment from its MD Start III Fund, a medtech accelerator that actively works with clinicians and entrepreneurs to develop disruptive medical devices. In May 2019, the fund raised €48 million from key institutional investors and has made two seed investments so far: MastOR and Gradient Denervation Technologies. The most recent investment is in MastOR, a French company leveraging its core expertise in surgical robotics to develop enhanced laparoscopic devices to improve the precision and ergonomics of minimally-invasive surgery. The company was founded in 2019 by a renowned pioneer in laparoscopic surgery, Professor Brice Gayet of the Paris-based Institut Mutualiste Montsouris, and entrepreneur, Pierre Campredon.
“The Sofinnova MD Start team is known for its active, hands-on approach to company building,” said Prof. Gayet. “Their strategic and operational expertise is the perfect complement to the years of research and prototyping we have conducted thus far. Together, we will be able to accelerate the development of this game-changing technology and bring it to its full potential.”
MD Start III also invested in Gradient Denervation Technologies in February. The company is developing a medical device for a transvascular treatment of pulmonary hypertension, based on prior research and intellectual property developed at Stanford University. This has been an important area for MD Start, given its focus on interventional cardiology as a very innovation-savvy and fast-adopting medical community.
“These investments exemplify our mission of transforming innovative ideas into medical realities and backing inventors who are developing disruptive concepts for outstanding medical devices and procedures,” said Anne Osdoit, Partner at Sofinnova Partners. “Our network and partnerships have yielded a rich deal flow pipeline and we are confident in the potential for this fund to continue uncovering first-class devices that address major unmet medical needs.”
About Sofinnova Partners
Sofinnova Partners is a leading European venture capital firm specialized in Life Sciences. Based in Paris, France, with offices in London and Milan, the firm brings together a team of 40 professionals from all over Europe, the U.S. and Asia. The firm focuses on paradigm-shifting technologies alongside visionary entrepreneurs. Sofinnova Partners invests across the Life Sciences value chain as a lead or cornerstone investor, from very early-stage opportunities to late-stage/public companies. It has backed nearly 500 companies over more than 48 years, creating market leaders around the globe. Today, Sofinnova Partners has over €2 billion under management. For more information, please visit: www.sofinnovapartners.com
About MastOR
MastOR SAS is a Paris-based, early stage medical device company, developing a surgical robot for laparoscopy assistance. It is a privately held portfolio company of Sofinnova Partners, financed through the MD Start III Fund. The core technology is derived from joint research between the ISIR robotics lab at Sorbonne University and Professor Brice Gayet, a world-renowned surgeon and pioneer in minimally-invasive surgery. For more information, please visit: www.mastor-surgical.com
About Gradient Denervation Technologies
Gradient Denervation Technologies develops a device-based minimally invasive solution for the treatment of pulmonary hypertension with technology derived from an invention by clinicians from Stanford University. It is a privately held portfolio company of Sofinnova Partners, financed through the MD Start III Fund and based in Paris, France. For more information, please visit: www.gradientdenervation.com
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200701005947/en/
Contact information
Media Contacts:
Bommy Lee
Head of Communications, Sofinnova Partners
blee@sofinnovapartners.com
+33 (0) 6 47 71 38 11
North America
RooneyPartners LLC
Kate Barrette
kbarrette@rooneyco.com
+1 212 223 0561
France
StrategiesImage
Anne Rein
anne.rein@strategiesimage.com
+33 (0) 6 03 35 92 05
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
ISC 2026: KAYTUS Unveils Gigawatt-Scale AI Infrastructure and Intelligent Management to Empower Europe’s AI Future25.6.2026 10:02:00 EEST | Press release
KAYTUS, a leading provider in AI infrastructure and liquid cooling solutions, unveiled two core solutions at ISC 2026, designed for next-generation AI data centers: a gigawatt-scale, fully prefabricated containerized liquid-cooled data center solution and KSManage Ultra, an intelligent operations management platform for AI Factories. Together, the solutions target the escalating efficiency, performance, scalability, and reliability requirements of AI-era infrastructure, enabling faster deployment, optimized thermal management, and unified operations across large-scale AI computing environments. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260625809392/en/ KAYTUS prefabricated containerized liquid cooled data center solution The KAYTUS gigawatt-scale solution is built around a 3MW base delivery unit and scales flexibly to 1GW, reducing deployment timelines by up to 60% compared with conventional data center construction. KS
LR Health & Beauty SE Successfully Completes Financial Realignment – Strong Foundation for Growth and Long-Term Partnerships25.6.2026 10:00:00 EEST | Press release
LR Health & Beauty SE, Europe’s leading social commerce company for high-quality nutritional supplements and beauty products, has successfully completed its financial realignment, establishing the foundation for the company’s stable and forward-looking development. With the achievement of the final milestone, an intensive and demanding process has been successfully concluded. LR has fundamentally realigned its financing structure and significantly strengthened its capital base. An initial financing tranche of EUR 10 million was provided at the end of March, followed by a second tranche of the same amount in June. Jörg Körfer, CEO of LR Health & Beauty SE, comments: “The past months have been challenging for many parties involved. We are therefore particularly pleased to have successfully completed the company’s financial realignment. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our sales partners, suppliers, employees, and investors who have accompanied and supported us throughout
YesWeHack Launches Agentic Pentest for AI Security Testing25.6.2026 10:00:00 EEST | Press release
YesWeHack, the offensive security and exposure management platform, announces Agentic Pentest, an on-demand solution using autonomous AI agents to test organisations' assets and deliver same-day findings. Shaped by YesWeHack’s extensive offensive security experience, Agentic Pentest helps organisations identify vulnerabilities, test their real-world exploitability and uncover attack paths across in-scope assets. The solution supports black box, grey box and white box testing of web applications, mobile apps, APIs and other internet-facing assets. YesWeHack, leader in offensive security in Europe and APAC, leverages the best available frontier models for offensive testing, including open-weight models. This flexible approach enables organisations to use models developed and/or hosted anywhere in the world, such as in EU or APAC. Agents operate within guardrails developed by YesWeHack to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of customer systems throughout testing. Unifi
H2SITE Secures New Strategic Investment to Accelerate Industrial Deployment of Hydrogen Production and Separation Solutions25.6.2026 07:00:00 EEST | Press release
H2SITE, a leading industrial company in hydrogen production and separation solutions, has completed a second closing of its Series B round. The transaction brings in EIC Fund with a private investor who will support the company’s next phase of growth and increases H2SITE’s total funding raised in this round to more than €42 million. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260624444396/en/ H2SITE These new partners, join BEV, Suma Capital, Hy24, Crane, Enagás Emprende, Calderion and CRPV who participated in the first closing, further validating the confidence of the European innovation ecosystem in H2SITE’s ability to industrialize and deploy key hydrogen solutions at commercial scale. Over the past years, H2SITE has successfully demonstrated the maturity and scalability of its technology, achieving more than 50,000 operating hours with its membrane reactors and separators, establishing advanced manufacturing capabilit
FPT Expands Strategic Collaboration with Microsoft to Advance AI Frontier Innovation Across Asia25.6.2026 05:00:00 EEST | Press release
FPT Corporation today announced an expanded strategic collaboration with Microsoft aimed at accelerating enterprise AI adoption and co‑innovation across Asia, with a strong focus on ASEAN, Japan, and South Korea. The collaboration brings together Microsoft’s global AI platforms with FPT’s large‑scale delivery and regional market capabilities to support organizations as they move from AI experimentation to real‑world, scalable impact, with measurable business outcomes. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260624200416/en/ Representatives of FPT and Microsoft at the signing ceremony, formalizing an expanded strategic collaboration to advance AI Frontier innovation across Asia The collaboration aligns with FPT’s AI‑First strategy and Microsoft’s vision for human‑agent collaboration, with the goal of enabling enterprises to redesign how work is done across engineering, operations, and business functions. Positioning FP
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom