Therapixel secures a €5 million Series A financing and strengthens its governance
Omnes and M Capital Partners co-lead the round to join historical investors Financing enables next phase of deployment of Company’s award-winning AI-powered primary reading solution for breast cancer screening. Sacha Loiseau, chairman and founder of Mauna Kea Technologies, joins as independent Board Member and is appointed Chairman of the Board.
Paris – March 13th, 2019 – Therapixel, the AI company winner of the DREAM Digital Mammography challenge, announces a €5 million Series A financing with Omnes and M Capital Partners joining its pool of investors Région Sud Investissement (managed by Turenne Capital), IT-Translation and Credit Agricole (Creazur). As part of this important funding milestone, Sacha Loiseau, Chairman and Founder of Mauna Kea Technologies, was appointed as independent Board Member and subsequently elected Chairman of the Board. Maximilien Fournier-Sourdille, an associate at Omnes and an experienced MedTech executive and investor, also joins the Board of Director, along with Yoann Bonnamour from M Capital Partners.
Olivier Clatz, co-founder of Therapixel, has recently been named by the French Innovation Council as “AI for diagnosis” Program Manager; he will smoothly transition out of the Company.
Pierre Fillard, CTO and co-founder, has been appointed CEO until a new chief executive joins the Company.
Therapixel is the winner of the DREAM Digital Mammography Challenge in 2017, the largest AI competition ever organized, with 1,200 participants and a $1.2 million money prize. Therapixel has demonstrated its ability to develop world’s best AI-based algorithms for breast cancer screening. Since the Challenge, Therapixel has further improved its algorithm to reach the performance level of best radiologists.
Breast imaging is one of the most needed radiology specialty with one woman out of eight affected during her lifetime and 250 million mammograms analyzed every year worldwide. Breast cancer diagnosis is very challenging with only 0.5% of mammograms containing cancerous tissue and 10% are false positive.
Pierre Fillard, co-founder and CEO of Therapixel, declared: “Therapixel is entering a new and exciting phase. With this financing round and the strengthening of our governance, I am confident that we will continue to attract the best talents and maintain our leadership.”
Sacha Loiseau, Chairman of Therapixel, added: “Therapixel has proven to be a leader in the field of artificial intelligence applied to one of the key challenges in cancer screening. I am delighted to join the company at this key moment and to work hand in hand with Pierre and his team to bring value to our shareholders.”
“Therapixel’s team is truly outstanding and has succeeded in demonstrating, over and over, its technical superiority”, said Maximilien Fournier-Sourdille, Associate at Omnes. “We are pleased to join this journey and strongly believe Therapixel is geared to achieve a major improvement in breast cancer screening”.
Yoann Bonnamour, Senior Associate at M Capital Partners, added: “We’re excited to support the outstanding team at Therapixel and to help tackle one of the most important challenges in healthcare today.”
About Therapixel
Created in 2013 by two former INRIA researchers, Therapixel is a world leader in artificial intelligence applied to radiology. Winner of the DREAM Digital Mammography Challenge in 2017, Therapixel is developing an AI-based service for assisting radiologists review screening mammography for breast cancer. Therapixel is actively recruiting new talents to accelerate its development.
For more information, please visit www.therapixel.com and www.mammoscreen.com.
About Omnes
Omnes is a leading Paris-based European investor in private equity and infrastructure. With €3.6 billion of assets under management, Omnes provides SMEs with the capital needed to finance growth. The firm has dedicated investment teams across three key areas: Venture Capital, Buyout & Growth Capital and Infrastructure. With more than 30 trade sales and nearly 15 IPOs in 20 years (including Novaled, Biovex, arGEN-X and Direct Energie), Omnes Venture Capital team is a leading French player in financing innovative SMEs with dual expertise in the deep-tech and healthcare sectors. Its current portfolio includes Enterome, AB Tasty, BlaBlaCar, Scality and Sigfox. Omnes is owned by its employees. Omnes is committed to ESG issues and has set up the Omnes Foundation in aid of children’s charities. It is also a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).
About M Capital Partners
With €500 million of assets under management and a portfolio of over 160 SMEs, M Capital Partners is a leading Private Equity firm in the French Small-cap market.
We operate in venture and growth capital as well as LBOs and have developed five areas of expertise: Life Science and Healthcare, Digital & Media, Brand & Retail, and Real Estate. In 2018, our affiliated companies employed over 11200 people and generated more than €2 billion in turnover.
M Capital Partners has offices in Paris, Toulouse, Marseille, Nice, and Lyon. We have built a team of 40 employees including 22 investment professionals, together with 19 senior advisors that strive to build world-class partnerships with entrepreneurs to help them take their businesses to the change their industries.
About Région Sud Investissement
Région Sud Investissement is the regional co-investment fund created in 2010 by Région Sud to support the appearance and development of growing regional companies. This investment fund, with €80 million under management, has benefited from the support of the European Union through the ERDF fund that has accounts for 50% of its capital. Since July 2011, this fund, advised by Turenne Capital Group, has invested in 74 regional companies for a total of €36.6 million.
www.regionsudinvestissement.com
About Turenne Capital Group
Managing Région Sud Investissement, Turenne Capital Group is a French major player in Private Equity, supporting entrepreneurs in their projects of innovation, business development and transferring for 20 years. Turenne Capital is an independent firm owned by its management, with €1 billion in assets under management. Its teams, 55 employees of whom 38 are investors, are based in Paris, Lille (affiliate in partnership with Credit Agricole Nord de France), Lyon, Marseille and Metz and support 250 businesses, in health sector, hotel industries, new technologies, distribution or innovative services.
About IT-TRANSLATION
IT-Translation is an investor and co-founder of deep-tech start-ups spun off from French public and private research in digital technology. What makes this model so original? Intervening right from the start, IT-Translation deploys its resources, both financial (the IT-Translation Investment fund) and human, to ‘translate’ technologies into products and services, and to lead researchers/entrepreneurs into the business world. http://it-translation.fr/en/
Press contacts
Omnes: Gaëlle de Montoussé, gaelle.demontousse@omnescapital.com – +33 1 80 48 79 16
Brackendale Consulting: Fay Margo, fay@brackendaleconsulting.com – +44 7962 1115825
Turenne Capital: Josepha Montana, josepha.montana@turennecapital.com
M Capital Partners: Alan Waysbort, a.waysbort@mcapitalpartners.fr