Vivalyx secures seed financing to improve donor organ quality
Vivalyx secures seed financing to improve donor organ quality
- Secured seed investment aims to finance the first in human clinical study for strongly improved preservation of donor organs
- Brightlands Venture Partners (BVP) invests together with TechVision Fonds and renowned family offices and angel investors
Aachen, Germany, April 30, 2024 – Aachen-based Organ Vitality Tech company Vivalyx GmbH has received an investment of 5.4 million euros led by BVP and TechVision Fonds (TVF) in an oversubscribed seed financing round. The team led by Dr. Andreas Schumacher and Dr. Benedict Doorschodt is developing novel solutions to increase organ vitality with the aim to expand the number of organs available for life-saving transplantations. The capital raised will be used to finance the necessary clinical trials to achieve regulatory clearance and to start commercialization.
“The financing round brings us a decisive step closer to bringing our products to market. We see great potential in our innovations to revolutionize the organ transplantation industry worldwide. We are pleased to have found investors who share our vision and back our mission,” says Dr. Andreas Schumacher, CEO of Vivalyx.
Organ donor shortage remains a critical unmet medical need
Patients and medical doctors are awaiting innovations in the field of organ transplantation. The statistics underpin the need for such innovations. The average waiting time for a donor kidney is up to eight years, and over a million patients worldwide are currently awaiting a donor organ.
This shortage in donor organs is solvable by perfusing organs at body temperature: a method clinically proven but hardly scalable due to reliance on rare donor blood and its high costs.
Vivalyx introduces a patented solution surpassing this barrier for the first time, making perfusion at body temperature scalable. Their novel liquid Vivalyx Omnisol outperforms the efficacy of the blood-based benchmark in preclinical trials, is fully synthetic – eliminating blood-related concerns – and significantly cuts costs. Vivalyx Omnisol does not only work for perfusion at body-temperature, but is meant for cold and warm perfusion and static cold storage with expected beneficial clinical outcomes. Thus, Vivalyx Omnisol will be the process- and cost-effective one stop solution for all preservation applications.
Dr. Luc Starmans from Brightlands Venture Partners: “The shortage of donor organs is a huge challenge for healthcare systems worldwide. Vivalyx is developing innovations that have the potential to significantly increase the number of available donor organs.”
Renowned international investors and business angels invest in experienced founding team
Dr. Andreas Schumacher and Dr. Benedict Doorschodt founded Vivalyx 2022 together with co-founders Prof. Dr. René Tolba, Dr. Christian Bleilevens, Prof. Dr. Malte Brettel and Marius Rosenberg. The product idea is based on decades of research by Doorschodt, Tolba and Bleilevens. Overall, the team combines entrepreneurial experience with deep organ transplantation knowledge. In addition to the lead investors, the experienced founding team managed to attract other industry experts such as Arve Capital, the US deeptech VC Goose Capital and other well-known business angels such as Springboard Health Angels, Andrej Henkler and Thomas Ebeling, former CEO of Novartis Pharma.
“We look forward to supporting the dedicated team and the outstanding technology together with this great investor consortium in the coming years,” says Bernhard Kugel, Managing Director of TVF.
About BVP
Brightlands Venture Partners (BVP) is an impact investor in groundbreaking and early-stage health and sustainability startups that operate out of the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium. BVP is the fund manager of Brightlands Venture Partners Fund IV B.V. Other BVP funds include Chemelot Ventures, Brightlands Agrifood Fund, and Limburg Ventures. Together, the funds have made over 50 investments to date.
www.brightlandsventurepartners.com
About TVF Management
TechVision Fonds (TVF) is the leading early-stage VC fund from the Rhineland/NRW with a focus on technology start-ups in the pre-seed to Series A phases. TVF focuses on outstanding teams from the region, including the neighboring Netherlands and Belgium. The TVF management has experience from four fund generations and currently has over € 100 million in assets under management. The fund is backed by strong investors such as NRW.BANK, seven savings banks from western NRW and more than 15 successful entrepreneurs.
The TVF supports start-up teams with proximity, network and expertise and paves the way for them to become the next international industry leader. Through the S-UBG Group network, the TVF offers unique access to over 150 successful companies in various industries and establishes contacts between start-ups and their first customers, partners and consultants.
TVF – Brain | Cash | Proximity
About Vivalyx
Vivalyx GmbH was founded by Dr. Andreas Schumacher, Dr. Benedict Doorschodt, Prof. Dr. René Tolba, PD. Dr. Christian Bleilevens, Prof. Dr. Malte Brettel and Marius Rosenberg in Aachen in 2022. The life science start-up has developed an innovative technology for revitalizing donor organs with the aim of increasing their vitality and thus increasing the number of organs available for life-saving transplants. The Vivalyx team combines medical, medical technology, regulatory and start-up know-how and has already been able to attract renowned investors. Further information can be found here: https://vivalyx.com
Picture: Dr. Benedict Doorschodt (left), Dr. Andreas Schumacher (right)
Image source: Vivalyx GmbH