BCV Raises €6 Million in Series A Funding

BCV has secured €6 million in a Series A financing round led by New-York based Forepont Capital Partners, an international venture capital firm investing in disruptive biotech and medtech startups. Other investors include Palo Alto, Calif.-based NTI, MEDCO (France) and existing French investors.

This Series A funding brings the total amount raised since inception to €13 million. BCV’s Series A remains open until March 31.

“This round of financing will enable BCV to progress toward FDA and CE mark approval,” BCV CEO Thierry Col stated. “Forepont and NTI will accelerate BCV’s development first in the U.S. market thanks to a premier network in endovascular access.” 

The funding will accelerate the development of BCV’s range of active mechatronic¹ guidewires, from manufacturing to go-to-market. BCV has already built a plant in Reims to secure in-house manufacturing and R&D evolution toward miniaturization. “Our technology, applied to a guidewire, will be a disruptive change in minimally invasive procedures improving patients’ outcomes,” BCV Chairman/Co-Founder Raphaël Blanc, M.D., said.

BCV’s patented innovation consists of an actuable² guidewire controlled by a smart handle and a generator. The BCV system’s shape-memory alloy technology enables distal tip control improving practitioners’ gestures and demonstrating superior performance over existing advanced actuation technologies. 

“BCV creates an opportunity to simplify and speed up access in complicated anatomies, a critical part of all endovascular procedures,” noted Adnan H. Siddiqui, M.D., Ph.D.
 
This steerable mechatronic guidewire is designed to enhance safety, reduce procedure time and produce better outcomes, providing support during critical interventions performed for stroke or artery diseases.
 
“Forepont is proud to lead BCV’s series A raise to support the advancement of BCV’s superior technology that has already been endorsed by over 100 international interventional radiology experts in the US and in Europe,” said Frederic Batoua, a partner at Forepont Capital partners.
 
BCV is a medical device company founded in 2016 that is developing optimized navigation technology for endovascular procedures. The company successfully achieved its first in-human clinical trial in 2022 at Rothschild Foundation Hospital in Paris and filed a pre-submission application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Originally developed with help from Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics (ISIR) at Sorbonne University-CNRS and INSERM (Paris, France), the core technology is mechatronic. The BCV System is an investigational device and is not available for commercial sale worldwide.

Forepont Capital Partners is a healthcare and life science venture capital firm based in New York with a strong presence in Europe. Forepont has developed partnerships with industry leaders, physicians, key opinion leaders, universities, hospitals and pharmaceutical groups, mainly in neurology. Forepont invest in early-stage companies whose science and technology positively impact patients’ lives. Forepont provides scientific, technological, financial and operational support to improve portfolio company performance, leveraging their talents with its know-how and global ecosystem.

Neurotechnology Investors is composed of physicians worldwide with backgrounds in neurosurgery, neurology, and several vascular specialties. NTI draws on the collective knowledge of its membership to identify, invest, and provide operational expertise for promising medical technologies along their development lifecycle, from concept through commercialization.

References
¹ Mechatronic: both mechanical and electronic.
² Actuable: the ability to be put into mechanical action or motion.