Eurasanté is proud to announce that from January 1 to December 15 2022, 15 of the startups that the competitiveness cluster is supporting completed their fundraising operations and raised a total amount of €27.2 million (dilutive and non-dilutive) compared with €22.6 million (in dilutive and non-dilutive), or €12.1 million in dilutive only.

In detail, €20.7 million euro have been raised in the healthcare sector, €5.3 million in nutrition and agrifoodstuffs and €1.2 million for the silver economy. “We are fortunate to have a regional funding ecosystem that is relatively well-equipped in generalized and specialized tools. This explains these good results,” said Etienne Vervaecke, Eurasanté General Manager.

Eurasanté is the center of excellence of the nutrition/healthcare sector in the Hauts-de-France region. The economic development agency is organizing a competitiveness cluster and 3 incubators that cover three flagship domains: healthcare, foodtech and the silver economy.

These companies that are incubated/accelerated by Eurasanté and supported in their fundraising operations comprise 10 e-health startups, 7 pharma/biotech startups, 6 biomedical startups, 3 in nutrition and 1 in the silver economy.

“The record results for 2022 for seed and series A fundraising operations carried out by healthcare startups that are incubated and accelerated at Eurasanté show the relevance, for a regional innovative ecosystem, of having a regional fund that specializes in healthcare. It is absolutely critical and indispensable,” Etienne Vervaecke, Eurasanté General Manager.

The excellent progress between 2022 and 2021 is the result of the launch of the Captech Santé investment fund, under the impetus of Eurasanté and its partner Finorpa. Created in early 2022, this fund that is wholly-devoted to healthcare raised €30 million, including 80% in the form of private contributions, the remainder being funded by the region and the Lille metropolis. “We initiated the creation of this investment fund as many potential general investors, that were not healthcare experts, were keen that a specialist should also take part in the funding round. It worked!”, the Eurasanté General Manager was pleased to say.

The following are some of the dilutive and non-dilutive amounts raised for these startups:

• Nectargo raised €2.1 million to help distributors unearth local products.
• Vetbiolix raised €2.5 million to launch the clinical development of its “First-in-class” drug candidates for dogs and cats for periodontal diseases and osteoarthritis.
• EPPUR raised €1.2 million to fund the production of Dreeft, its braking system for wheelchairs.
• Lattice (bioresorbable breast prostheses) raised €3 million.
• X’Prochem (customized syntheses of peptides and therapeutic proteins) raised €1.8 million + €1.4 million in grants i.e. €3.2 million.
• Hemerion (therapeutic approach to glioblastoma via photodynamic phototherapy) raised €2.3 million.

Although 2022 has been conducive to the growth of healthcare players in northern France, Eurasanté nevertheless anticipates a reduction in capital, albeit not before 2024, “given the reluctance of investors due to the macro-economic context,” said Etienne Vervaecke.