Sapiens Steering Brain Stimulation, a Netherlands-based medical technology company spun off from local conglomerate Royal Philips Electronics in 2011, has extended its series A round by €7.5m ($10m) for its deep-brain stimulation (DBS) implant to treat Parkinson’s disease.
Inkef Capital, a quasi-corporate venturing joint venture between pension funds ABP and Omers, joined Sapiens’ consortium in the latest funding round.
Frank Landsberger, founder of Inkef, which is an acronym of INvesting in the Knowledge Economy of the Future, has joined Sapiens’ advisory board. He said: “Sapiens has the promise of bringing significant therapeutic improvement to patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease and other serious brain disorders.”
Sapiens said it previously raised €16.5m of equity in it’s A round.
In November 2011, Sapiens raised €10m ($15m) in equity and grants from other quasi-corporate venturing backers.
UK-based medical foundation Wellcome Trust, and US peer Michael J Fox Foundation, along with Dutch state-backed Agentschap, provided the money to help Sapiens develop its technology for treating Parkinson’s disease and other brain disorders. Wellcome invested €3.5m of equity, the Fox Foundation gave $370,000 in grants.
Agentschap provided €5m equity funding, as well as a €1.5m grant to develop its procedure in collaboration with the departments of Neurosurgery and Neurology of the Academic Medical Center in the country’s capital, Amsterdam, and Twente Medical Systems International, a company developing electrophysiological technology.
The €10m follows an initial €13m series A round by venture capital firms Wellington Partners, Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners and LSP in May. Philips and NeuroNexus Technologies became minority shareholders in Sapiens as a result of their contribution to the development of the Sapiens’ system and underlying technologies that stimulate the brain to treat epilepsy and other problems from Parkinson’s Disease.