Endostart, an Italian startup aiming at reducing endoscopic procedures’ complexity, raised €1 million in its seed round of financing Florence, Italy - December 20th, 2018
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Endostart, an Italian startup aiming at reducing endoscopic procedures’ complexity, raised €1 million in its seed round of financing
Panakès Partners led the round alongside of Estor, A11 Venture and sector business angels.
Panakès Partners has led an investment round of ca. €1 million in Endostart (www.endostart.com), an innovative startup based in Certaldo (Florence, Tuscany - Italy) operating in the medical technologies sector.
Endostart first product, Endorail, is an endoscopic magnetic guidewire able to guide a colonoscope along the colon, ultimately possibly avoiding incomplete colonoscopies. Endorail is a quite simple system composed by a balloon guidewire, a ferrofluid prefilled syringe and an external magnet. This technology is also supposed to reduce the procedural time of most colonoscopies while potentially reducing patient pain and discomfort as well as healthcare related costs.
As of today, roughly 60 million colonoscopies are performed worldwide. Colonoscopy is the elective diagnostic and therapeutic procedure for identification and removal of colorectal tumors and has proved to be the most effective examination for colorectal cancer screening.
The founding team of Endostart is composed by Alessandro Tozzi MD, specialist in Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Digestive endoscopy, who resigned from his previous position as medical director at “Nuovo Ospedale San Giuseppe, Empoli” to fully commit to Endostart development and serve as CEO to the company, and Alberto Bruni, president of Special Electronic Design Srl, who provides extensive experience in business administration and finance.
Panakès investment allows the founding team to be supported by a number of advisors with relevant experience: Lukas Guenther (former Investment Director, Wellington Partner), Oliver Hofmann (former Senior Investment Manager, Inventages Ventures) and Barbara Castellano (Principal, Panakès Partners) will serve as non-executive directors, while Diana Saraceni (co-founder and General Partner at Panakès Partners) will be Chairman.
“Thanks to new financial resources we will now be able to develop an entire new family of devices based on ferrofluid and magnetic fields which could provide new diagnostic and therapeutic options for millions of patients worldwide” enthusiastically commented the CEO and co-founder of Endostart, Alessandro Tozzi. “Colonoscopy is generally considered a difficult exam to be performed: data report a 5-25% rate of incomplete tests overall. Incomplete colonoscopies are associated with higher risk of missing a potential harmful lesion hence to a diagnostic delay which might ultimately translate in a worst prognosis for the patient. We are developing Endorail to make exam more accessible to operators, enabling a complete and high quality procedure for all patients that need to be tested. As of today, the device is still under development and will have to be further tested in clinical setting”.
“Endostart has all the charachteristics to be succesfull in the digestive endoscopy market, a segment really prone to innovation” said Diana Saraceni. “Thanks to deep experience and strong reputation of its clinicians, Europe has already given birth to various successful Venture Capital investment cases in this sector, not least the history of Invendo Medical which has seen me directly involved as an investor”.
About Endostart
Endostart is an Italian start-up founded in 2018 developing a new generation of medical devices for upper and lower gastrointestinal endoscopy based on proprietary Magnetic Balloon Anchoring Technology (MBAT). The first product is Endorail, a device aimed at enabling fast, safe and painless completion of colonoscopies. Endostart is supported by private investors, led by a highly professional team and an international board with multi-exit experience. Quality Management System is currently being implemented targeting ISO 13485 accreditation and CE mark granting.
www.endostart.com Contact: info@endostart.com
About Panakès Partners
Panakès Partners is a Venture Capital investor that finances medical companies, early stage startup and SMEs, with extremely promising products and great ambition, in Europe and Israel, improving both patient outcomes and healthcare economics. Investments focus on the medical device, diagnostics and healthcare IT fields. Panakès Partners is headquartered in Milan, Italy.
www.panakes.it Contact: contact@panakes.it
About Estor SpA
With more than 40 years of experience in the medical sector, Estor (www.estor.it) distributes both proprietary and third-party innovative and high-tech products. In particular, the company is specializes in blood purification therapies for various clinical applications, including hemodialysis and intensive care. Estor is characterized by an international team of bioengineers, biologists, pharmacists, chemists, managers and administrative staff. Its corporate structure allows the capillary coverage of the entire national territory and, currently in Italy, holds relationships with more than 600 public and private hospitals.
About A11 Venture
A11 Venture srl is an holding company which invests in startups during Seed, proposing solutions targeting international markets. Investments focus on the fields of robotics & automation, additive manufacturing, AI & machine learning applications, medtech, big data & cybersecurity solutions. A11 Venture has its headquarter in Lucca, Italy, in the hearth of some of the main important industrial clusters of Tuscany Region, and next to University and Research hub of Pisa-Florence-Lucca.
www.a11venture.it Contact: info@a11venture.it