Sapiens Steering Brain Stimulation, a Netherlands-based medical technology company spun off from local conglomerate Royal Philips Electronics earlier this year, has raised €10m ($15m) in equity and grants from 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.