Landshut/Munich/Paris — Bayern Kapi­tal is taking a signi­fi­cant million euro stake in Paris-based TRiCa­res SAS, whose wholly owned subsi­diary, TRiCa­res GmbH of Asch­heim near Munich, employs around 20 highly quali­fied staff in Bava­ria, using resour­ces from the Bava­ria 2 growth fund. The German-French MedTech start-up is deve­lo­ping the medi­cal device Topaz, a cathe­ter-based heart valve repla­ce­ment system, to better treat severe tricu­spid regurgitation.

The invest­ment was made in the course of the second closing of a tran­sac­tion alre­ady announ­ced in Septem­ber. Series C finan­cing round with a total volume of EUR 47 millionwhose inves­tors include, in addi­tion to the lead inves­tor 415 Capi­tal also Go Capi­tal, Karista, Credit Mutuel Inno­va­tion, Welling­ton Part­ners, Andera Part­ners, Biomed­in­vest as well as a Consor­tium of private inves­tors around the company foun­der Pascal Lim.

Heart valve dise­ase is one of the most serious heart dise­a­ses, affec­ting more than 12.7 million pati­ents in Europe and many more world­wide. Although mini­mally inva­sive cathe­ter-based solu­ti­ons for the treat­ment of aortic and mitral valve dise­ase have been deve­lo­ped in recent years, none have been deve­lo­ped speci­fi­cally for the tricu­spid valve. Tricu­spid valve regur­gi­ta­tion is a common and serious condi­tion for which open-heart surgery and sympto­ma­tic phar­ma­co­lo­gic treat­ment are the stan­dard treat­ment opti­ons. Howe­ver, due to the high morta­lity risk, open-heart surgery is ruled out for more than 99% of dise­a­sed indi­vi­du­als — the average survi­val time for pati­ents without surgi­cal treat­ment is only 2.2 years.

TRiCa­res’ Topaz trans­fe­mo­ral heart valve repla­ce­ment system promi­ses to be a medi­cal mile­stone in the treat­ment of tricu­spid regur­gi­ta­tion. The inno­va­tive medi­cal device was deve­lo­ped speci­fi­cally for pati­ents with severe tricu­spid regur­gi­ta­tion to avoid risky open heart surgery. Topaz is the result of a French-German colla­bo­ra­tion and is implan­ted from the patient’s femo­ral vein in a lower-risk mini­mally inva­sive proce­dure. It is speci­fi­cally desi­gned to fit the anatomy of the tricu­spid valve for easy posi­tio­ning and high func­tion­a­lity. The pros­pects of pati­ents for whom there are no other treat­ment opti­ons can thus be signi­fi­cantly improved.

The Company plans to use the new funding from the comple­ted Series C round initi­ally to cover the costs of the curr­ently ongo­ing first-in-man clini­cal trial of Topaz (TRICURE FIH trial) in Belgium, as well as for the poten­tial submis­sion of the same in other Euro­pean count­ries. Howe­ver, the new capi­tal will prima­rily be inves­ted in the further deve­lo­p­ment of the product and to conduct a regis­tra­tion trial in the USA. To this end, TRiCa­res 2023 is initia­ting an early feasi­bi­lity study in five U.S. centers.

Helmut Strau­bin­ger, Presi­dent and CEO of TRiCa­res, says: “The successful finan­cing reflects the enorm­ous poten­tial of the Topaz heart valve repla­ce­ment system, our conti­nuous progress in its deve­lo­p­ment and the great confi­dence of our inves­tors. We are doing ever­y­thing we can to prove our very good results to date in clini­cal trials in other Euro­pean count­ries and also in the U.S., so that we can then offer this much-needed solu­tion to all pati­ents suffe­ring from severe tricu­spid regurgitation.”

Bavaria’s Minis­ter of Econo­mic Affairs Hubert Aiwan­ger adds: “Toge­ther with the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank (EIB), we have endo­wed the Bava­ria 2 Growth Fund with 165 million euros to support high-tech start-ups in the deve­lo­p­ment phase. One of our goals here is to ensure that such compa­nies conti­nue to remain in Bava­ria and do not have to migrate due to a lack of funding. The exam­ple of TRiCa­res shows how dyna­mic and inno­va­tive our Bava­rian ecosys­tem for start-ups is.”

“Tricu­spid valve surge­ries are among the riskiest cura­tive proce­du­res, with a large propor­tion of affec­ted pati­ents deemed unsui­ta­ble due to high morta­lity rates,” explains Dr. Georg Ried, Mana­ging Direc­tor of Bayern Kapi­tal. “With Topaz, TRiCa­res is deve­lo­ping an inno­va­tive product with excel­lent poten­tial to fill this major gap in the treat­ment of valvu­lar heart dise­ase. We are very plea­sed to support TRiCa­res on its further course towards market approval.”

“We believe that the tech­no­logy deve­lo­ped by TRiCa­res has the poten­tial to estab­lish itself as the gold stan­dard in the treat­ment of pati­ents with tricu­spid regur­gi­ta­tion and to restore the quality of life of milli­ons of pati­ents in the long term,” commen­ted Frede­rik Groe­ne­we­gen, mana­ging part­ner of 415 Capi­tal. “We are impres­sed with the initial clini­cal cases with the Topaz system and look forward to helping the team bring this novel therapy to pati­ents in the U.S. and Europe.”

About TRiCa­res
TRiCa­res is a medi­cal device start-up based in Paris and Munich with a vision to bring a trans­fe­mo­ral tricu­spid valve repla­ce­ment system to market. This is inten­ded to help pati­ents with severe tricu­spid regur­gi­ta­tion (TI) without the need for open heart surgery. TRiCa­res’ expe­ri­en­ced team is supported by leading Euro­pean life science venture capi­tal firms 415 Capi­tal, Andera Part­ners, Bayern Kapi­tal, BioMed­Part­ners, Credit Mutuel Inno­va­tion, GoCa­pi­tal, Karista and Welling­ton Partners.
www.tricares.com

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapi­tal GmbH, based in Lands­hut, is the venture/growth capi­tal company of the Free State of Bava­ria. It accom­pa­nies inno­va­tive high-tech compa­nies in the Free State through various growth phases, from seed to later stage, with equity capi­tal in the amount of 0.25 to 25 million euros. Bayern Kapi­tal often fills gaps in the VC sector in proven consor­tium constel­la­ti­ons with private inves­tors (busi­ness angels, family offices and corpo­rate ventures).

Bayern Kapi­tal mana­ges specia­li­zed invest­ment funds with a volume of around 700 million euros. Since its foun­da­tion in 1995 on the initia­tive of the state govern­ment, the wholly owned subsi­diary of LfA Förder­bank Bayern has so far inves­ted around 400 million euros of its own equity capi­tal in around 300 start-ups and scale-ups in sectors such as life scien­ces, soft­ware & IT, mate­ri­als & new mate­ri­als, nano­tech­no­logy and envi­ron­men­tal tech­no­logy. As a result, more than 8,000 jobs have been perma­nently crea­ted in Bava­ria in sustainable compa­nies. The active port­fo­lio curr­ently compri­ses over 80 companies.

Examp­les of nume­rous ground­brea­king success stories that Bayern Kapi­tal has been invol­ved in early on include EOS (today the world’s leading tech­no­logy provi­der in indus­trial 3D prin­ting of metals and plas­tics), Proglove, Fazua, SimS­cale, Scom­pler, egym, Parcel­lab, Cobrai­ner, Quan­tum Systems, Casavi, Theva, Riskme­thods, Tubu­lis, Cata­lym, Immu­nic, Sirion and many more.
www.bayernkapital.de