Medical startup NanoVation gets EU backing for breathing monitor
European Innovation Council Fund invests 5 million euro ($5.9 million) in NanoVation to speed up development and start EU marketing
Shoshanna Solomon was The Times of Israel's Startups and Business reporter
The European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund is investing 5 million euro ($5.9 million) in the Israeli medical startup NanoVation, for speeding up the development of a respiratory monitor and to start marketing in the EU.
The investment is part of the EIC’s strategy to identify and support high-impact startups and small companies and assist them in scaling up game-changing technologies, the startup said in a statement.
Last year NanoVation got a 2.5 million euro grant from the European Union’s highly competitive Horizon 2020 EIC Accelerator program.
NanoVation is the first Israeli company to receive both a grant and equity funding from the EIC, the statement said.
The respiratory monitor, called SenseGuard, developed by the Haifa-based company is based on nano-sensor technology developed by Prof. Hossam Haick of the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology.
The device seeks to monitor and manage patients with various respiratory conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a lung disease characterized by long-term breathing problems and poor airflow. The disease is the third leading cause of death globally, according to the World Health Organization.
SenseGuard is a wearable wireless device for continuous and remote monitoring of patients’ breathing, based on information collected by the sensor, which detects various respiratory parameters like respiratory rate, apnea and breath volume, and translates them into clinical information and raises the alarm before the patient reaches a critical point, thus reducing hospital admissions.
It also helps shorten patients’ length of stay in the hospital by providing data to support healthcare professionals’ decisions and actions, and by enabling earlier discharge through monitoring the patient at home. Patients can use the device at home by themselves.
The device has already undergone clinical trials and received the European regulator’s CE mark of approval, showing that the technology is both safe and accurate, the statement said.
“We are grateful and honored by the privilege of being the first Israeli company on such an exclusive list of companies, receiving both a grant and equity financing from the EIC,” said Dr. Gregory Shuster, CEO and co-founder of NanoVation. “This is an additional endorsement of NanoVation and a vote of confidence in our team, in the novel technology we are developing and in the significance of the problem we are addressing. We aim to keep the momentum going and are even considering increasing the latest funding round, to assure effective market penetration and growth prospects.”
NanoVation was founded in 2014 as a spinoff from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, and Haick is the company’s chief scientific officer.
The company has so far successfully completed two rounds of financing and received grant support from the EU Horizon 2020 program, as well as from the Israel Innovation Authority.
José Fernando Figueiredo, member of the EIC Fund Investment Committee, said that the equity financing “will support NanoVation to successfully scale up its breakthrough technology SenseGuard.”
Established in June 2020, the European Innovation Council Fund is an initiative of the European Commission to make equity investments between 500,000 and 15 million euros in European high impact and deep tech startups and scale-ups.
The EIC Fund provides capital and invests in companies from any sector, across all EU countries and countries associated with Horizon 2020, including Israel.
