The Sabadell Asabys II fund has led an investment round of 14 million euros in Gradient Denervation Technologies, a French medical device company that develops a catheter to treat pulmonary hypertension in patients with severe heart failure, who now have no alternative. than a transplant.
Sylvain Sachot, partner at Asabys Partners, points out that this is a series A round (the first to be done after establishing the company), in which Sofinnova Partners, the fund that promoted the constitution of the company, and Thuja also participate. Capital. Sofinnova is the largest biomedical venture capital fund in Europe, with assets of 2.5 billion euros, and has already co-invested with Asabys in the Catalan biotech Nuage Therapeutics.
Gradient takes advantage of a technology developed at the American University of Stanford and its catheter, designed specifically for use in the pulmonary arteries, uses ultrasound energy to perform minimally invasive ablation. Sachot explained that the round will allow a first proof of concept of this technology in Europe, in a trial with 25 patients and next year a clinical trial in the United States, for which they have already reached an agreement with the health authorities, the FDA.
Asabys is a venture capital firm owned by Alantra and has Banc Sabadell as an anchor investor. The company, founded by Josep Lluís Sanfeliu and Clara Campàs in 2018, has around 217 million euros of assets under management and 14 investees, while it has already divested in another.
Sachot explained the investment in the French company has the support of the European Union under the InvestEU Fund. The manager enters Gradient with two of her vehicles, a fund and a venture capital company, which operate as Sabadell Asabys II. “We have made a first closing of 100 million euros, which we hope to increase to reach 150 million euros at the beginning of 2024,” she said. This fund has already invested in two Barcelona companies (DeepUll and OrikineBio) and makes its first investment abroad with Gradient.
