In Deep Brain Stimulation, Sapiens Adopts Wise Model

In early June, young company Sapiens Steering Brain Stimulation BV raised €13 million ($18.6 million) from its Series A round, co-led by Wellington Partners and Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners. [See Deal] Life Sciences Partners also participated. The financing was the largest Series A round for a European device company since 2005, and it certainly ranks near the top of the list of Series A device financings on the other side of the Atlantic as well. The company has a preclinical stage device in an emerging field, so the vote of confidence on the part of early stage investors is all the more unusual.

But like many start-ups funded these days, Sapiens is older than it looks. Founded in 2011, the company had a four-plus year head start in the folds of the Philips Research Laboratories division of Royal Philips Electronics NV in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Co-founder Michel Decré, at the time a principal scientist with Philips, says the Sapiens deep brain stimulation (DBS) project began six years ago, when, while scouting for adjacent growth opportunities, Philips Research hit upon neuromodulation. In particular, the deep brain stimulation market, created by Medtronic PLC, presented promising markets, pressing patient problems, and technology in need of improvement