Galgo Medical closes €1-million round of funding with capital from Inveready
<p>The company will put this funding towards validating and marketing its products </p>
This start-up specializes in developing software for the medical industry and was created out of the University Pompeu Fabra and Hospital Clinic Barcelona. This is the second round of funding the company has closed since it was created in July 2013 by seven engineers. It previously managed with investment from partners and collaborators, mostly doctors including Dr. Brugada, Dr. Mont and Dr. Berruezo, and some public grants.
“The sales we’ve had and the public capital we’ve received wasn’t enough to grow the company as quickly as necessary,” says Antoni Riu, managing director and co-founder of Galgo Medical. This public-private round of funding saw investment from the Inveready Innvierte Biotech II fund. “We didn’t want grants that require guarantees or to rely on our own capital,” added Riu.
The best solution was to take on board a venture capital firm like Inveready, which normally invests in innovative early-stage Spanish companies with financial needs between €1 million and €4 millions.
With this funding, over the coming two years, Galgo Medical aims to validate three software products they have developed in various hospitals and begin marketing them. “The three products must be self-sufficient and we have to break even and cover all expenses. We think we can do it with these funds,” says Riu.
About Galgo Medical
The start-up has developed three software products. The first is in orthopedics, calculating the risk of fracture from the patient’s bone and physical characteristics. It is called 3D-DXA Femur and is already being distributed by French manufacturer DMS in Montpellier.
They have also developed ADAS, a product that facilitates decision-making in surgery by providing 3D MRI images of the heart. The company has signed agreements to validate it at leading hospitals in the United States, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Singapore and Spain. And the third one, Fvet, is a prototype to help neurosurgeons and radiologists better plan interventions for precision operations.
All three software lines have already been tested at Hospital Clinic Barcelona with positive results. “We’ve identified 15 more hospitals and are about to sign agreements with them. The clinical teams are very interested in testing our technology. We’ve gone out to seek opinions beyond Barcelona and that has given us a second point of view.”
For the two products yet to hit the market, Galgo Medical is looking for multinational corporations to put them on the market. At the same time, the company expects to hire new personnel and possibly open a new office in Singapore, as President of the Board Lluís Serra explained.
Antoni Riu said that Dr. Serra’s experience in Singapore, where he worked for five years, will help the company land in the country and contact the government and venture capital firms. “In a year or two, we’ll try to open up a branch and do another round of funding. Now, first, we have to see whether or not the market accepts our products”.