Gières (Grenoble), France – eCential Robotics, a French growth company that designs and produces the only system fully unifying 2D/3D robotic imaging and surgical navigation, and previously known as Surgivisio, today announced the rebranding of its identity. The rebranding contributes to the strengthening of the Grenoble-based company’s position as a rising player in surgical robotics. eCential Robotics, which has experienced strong growth since the commercial launch of its platform in December 2017, has secured equity, quasi-equity and debt financing, totaling close to 100 million euros to support its industrial and commercial development. The company aims to cover all bone surgery indications through the development of surgical Apps.
Focusing imaging, navigation and surgical robotics workflows on the essential
Created in 2009 by Stéphane Lavallée, eCential Robotics’ goal is to reinforce the safety and accuracy of surgical procedures, while offering simplicity and speed of use. With the objective of enabling practitioners to practice in a reliable and simple environment for the best benefit of patients, eCential Robotics has focused its development on a unique and innovative concept: focusing surgical workflows on the essential to make robotic-assisted bone surgery simple enough in clinical routine that it becomes a standard of care. In its core design, the eCential Robotics platform unifies intraoperative 2D/3D imaging, navigation and robotics. The only available solution that is fully unified, it avoids the pitfalls of traditional image-navigation pairing, such as unreliable calibration and registration steps. The eCential Robotics platform is also an open solution, meaning that it can be used with any manufacturer’s implants, and cater to different surgeons’ preferences. Built around a range of applications (“Apps”) currently dedicated to spine surgery, the platform will in the future be used for multiple bone surgery indications.
After seven years dedicated to the massive development and fine-tuning of the technology and workflow, eCential Robotics obtained CE marking and successfully launched the commercialization of its platform in 2017. Eight units have since been sold and installed in France, Italy and Germany, and more than one thousand surgeries performed.
“Our development is built on partnerships between engineers, surgeons and various implant companies. The clinical feedback from our reference centers is very strong: surgeons and staff have gained in efficiency, and a large majority of opinion leaders now share our vision,” said Laurence Chabanas, Managing Director of eCential Robotics. “We have validated our simplification through unification approach, which will enable broad international adoption,” she added.
€100 million funding to reinforce growth
To support its industrial and commercial development, eCential Robotics has secured equity, quasi-equity and debt financing of close to 100 million euros. This funding is in particular the result of the support and trust of the company’s investors (Bpifrance, Sigma Gestion, Med-Innov and the company’s founders) and banks BNPParibas, Caisse d’Epargne Rhône Alpes and Crédit Agricole.
The financing will enable eCential Robotics to finance its growth over a number of years. In terms of sales and marketing, eCential Robotics aims to consolidate its European base in its main markets (France, Italy and Germany), and to gradually penetrate the North American market. Two subsidiaries, eCential Robotics, Inc. and eCential Robotics Italia, were created in 2020 and 2021 respectively. On the industrial front, the company will be increasing its production capabilities and investing heavily in the innovative development of new product lines.
Innovation at the core of eCential Robotics’ identity
eCential Robotics designs and manufactures all its products in France, in the Grenoble Metropole, in its 12,000 sq ft office space and 12,000sq ft factory (versus 1,600 sq ft in 2015). The company is capitalizing on the resources of the Grenoble hub. Grenoble, world capital of surgical robotics and Forbes’ fifth most innovative city in the world in 2013, offers an ideal innovation environment thanks to its strong history (first robotic neurosurgery in 1989 at Grenoble University Hospital) and a dense network of medical and new technology players (expert subcontractors, research laboratories and highly qualified engineers in particular).
The company, which doubled its workforce between 2019 and 2020, now has close to one hundred employees and plans to recruit fifty people by the end of 2021 (including design engineers, project managers, application engineers, project quality engineers and industrial buyers).
“With this financing of close to €100 million, unprecedented in the French medtech sector, eCential Robotics intends to become a major player in the transformation from traditional surgery to digital and robotic surgery, a field that is experiencing significant growth,” said Stéphane Lavallée, founding president of eCential Robotics. “Our ambition is to become the market leader in digital surgery, imaging and robotics by offering hospitals and surgeons who use our products a secure solution for the best benefit of patients. This is how we intend to become essential to bone surgery operating rooms,” he concluded.
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