Surgify Medical Oy, a Finnish startup company developing a novel neurosurgical burr, has raised a €1.0M financing round from a group of international investors. The investors joining the startup’s second round of financing include a Finnish venture capital firm Butterfly Ventures, as well as Cascara Ventures from Belgium, Merkatura AB (Andreas Bunge) from Sweden and FRIIH GmBH (Dr. Michael Friebe) from Germany. The funding will be used to finalize the neurosurgical burr and to apply for a sales approval in Europe.
The Surgify Safety burr prevents the nerve and blood vessel injuries that are typically caused by other surgical drills. The innovative technology can be easily used with existing surgical drills, and its usage does not require any additional training for the surgeon or the staff. Besides neurosurgical applications, the innovation can be used in the future also in spine surgery and in the fields of orthopedics and dentistry.
The technology has raised great interest amongst hospitals and surgeons globally. For example, we recently visited Harvard University’s teaching hospitals in Boston, and the reception was enthusiastic, tells Visa Sippola, the CEO of Surgify.
The technology has been initially developed in cooperation between Aalto University and Department of Neurosurgery at Helsinki University Hospital. The actual end product is a safety burr, which can be attached to existing surgical drills. The patent pending safety mechanism prevents the drill from damaging vital tissues, such as nerves or blood vessels. Describing the solution as “elegant and simplistic”, the MIT Technology Review journal awarded Sippola the prestigious Innovators Under 35 Europe -prize in September 2017.
Safer bone surgery without complications – Deep technology attracts European investors
The rapidly developing startup company aims to bring the Safety Burr technology to the market in 2019. The company thereafter plans to initiate sales in the Nordic Countries, after which it will expand the business to global markets. In addition to the easy adoption process of the technology, the considerable reductions in costs and surgical complications are expected to positively affect the demand for the solution.
Our core mission is to make bone surgery safer, as we believe that our technology has the potential to save lives in the future. The fact that we also bring clear cost savings to surgery will be of help in carrying out that mission – for example the complications caused by the current surgical drills cost over 4 billion euros each year globally, Sippola explains.
The health technology industry is often seen as a somewhat slowly developing field due to its need for strong external financing and years of research and development before product launch, yet Sippola believes that the industry can offer opportunities also for other innovative Finnish startups that are capable of moving fast.
There is currently a strong demand in the European technology scene for deep technology startups, such as Surgify, who are developing advanced science and research based technologies with a strong IP protection. Especially health tech and biotech startups seem to be attracting venture capitalists’ attention, and I believe Finland is showing promising signs in these sectors.
According to Dr. Adriaan Hart de Ruijter, the technological know-how behind this unique solution and the sustainable competitive advantage it offers is one of the most significant criteria for new investors to commit to Surgify.
The recently raised second financing round is an important milestone for Surgify. It enables the company to focus on the core activities, which are to finalize the product and to start the sales as soon as possible. It has been great to see that both Nordic and European investors believe in the team and the mission of making bone surgery safer, comments Adriaan Hart de Ruijter, who led the first financial round of Surgify in which Cascara Ventures participated together with Wave Ventures.
Additional information
Visa Sippola
CEO, Surgify Medical
visa.sippola@surgifymedical.com
+358 50 353 1232
Surgify Medical, founded in 2017, is a Finnish healthcare technology startup. The company is developing an internationally recognized surgical drill with an aim to make bone surgery safer.