When MedTech meets FinTech — Dutch start-up Surge-on Medical is pioneering a new digital way of venture funding
Surge-on Medical, the promising Dutch MedTech start-up in the area of minimally invasive surgery, is starring in a unique equity crowdfunding campaign, targeting investors from across Europe. This is not only the first time that such a crowdfunding campaign takes place but also the first big fundraising effort for Surge-on Medical.
With so many different funding options available for a European start-up, Surge-on Medical’s team opted for joining this innovative crowdfunding. But why? It’s simple: if you want to be disruptive, you need to look for disruptive options.
A non-traditional approach for a non-traditional start-up
Traditional investors can be very useful, but in Surge-on Medical’s specific case, with a complete road-map laid out, they wanted another approach.
Benno Groosman, CEO and co-founder of Surge-on Medical, is specialized by schooling and experienced in entrepreneurial finance and was very motivated to join the very first cross-border European equity crowdfunding campaign. “It is a great way to get the public, especially health care professionals, to become ‘part of our company’ to learn from them and to expand our ambassador’s base”, mentioned Benno when asked why joining an equity crowdfunding campaign through aescuvest.eu.
The online exposure and large scale media coverage that comes out of the campaign is already being very useful for their regular business, too. For example, it has been through constant exposure in specialized magazines and advertisements that some foreign surgeons found out about Surge-on Medical and their instruments.
A campaign as strong as its partners
Compared to traditional crowdfunding initiatives, this campaign offered the added value of a strong collaboration between the largest healthcare initiative in Europe, EIT Health, and the experienced healthcare-focused crowdfunding platform aescuvest.
“The partnership with EIT Health was a deciding factor for us in ‘trusting’ the new platform aescuvest, and the energetic and professional approach of the people of aescuvest helped to onboard us as their client”, said Benno.
By joining forces with EIT Health, Surge-on Medical is accessing important decision-makers and investors across Europe, thanks to the exclusive network of the organization. Aescuvest provides the experience in digital investment platforms to allow investors to safely participate in handpicked projects audited by an independent investment committee. Through this successful campaign, Surge-on Medical expects to launch its large-scale manufacturing of the arthroscopic line of instruments, to launch the Steerable Punch in Europe, to continue the R&D activities of the laparoscopic and robotic lines, and to expand the team into sales and marketing departments.
Targeting to raise € 3 to 5 million
The rising star in the segment of surgical instruments is developing and selling fully steerable, quick detachable and easy to clean instruments for minimal invasive arthroscopy and laparoscopy. Using cable-free technologies, they have created 3-dimensionally movable instruments that provide better access to surgical areas and replace the current fixed-angle instruments.
Surge-on Medical has obtained four international patents that represent a major advance in minimally invasive instruments, improving existing surgical techniques and making them more efficient. With its engineers, they are developing the future of remote-controlled robotics in precision surgery. The modular and reusable instruments are ready to be connected to robots, as validated for a US surgery robot builder. All instruments are jointly developed by a dozen active surgeons. The Steerable Punch — the first commercialized product — is approved by the Medical Ethical Committee and Instrument Sterilization Department of the largest hospital in the Netherlands.
Via aescuvest.eu the company now intends to raise €3 million by way of a prospectus-based security offering, valuing the company at €33.36 million. With a subscription reserve, the maximum placement volume can reach up to €5.0 million, corresponding to a 12.74 % share in the company. Investments will be bundled in an SPV, that will become one shareholder of the company and as such will fully participate in the value development of Surge-on Medical. The valuation is not at least reflecting the hopes that are set on the field of robotic medicine, as demonstrated in a recent takeover bid of German Medtech giant Siemens Healthineers: For 1.1 billion US dollars Healthineers acquires the US company Corindus Vascular Robotics. An impressive amount, given that Corindus generates annual revenue of approx. 11 million US dollars and makes a loss of 35 million US dollars.
Investments via aescuvest.eu into Surge-on Medical are open to private individuals and companies, retail investors, business angels and venture capitalists.
