KURMA Partners, IRDI Capital Investissement and M-Capital have acquired a stake in SmartCatch, a French medtech and deeptech company specialized in the development of cutting-edge diagnostic tools for precision medicine. The capital operation aims to accelerate the company's growth and the development of SmartCatch’s flagship solution for the clinical market.

SmartCatch: a patented device to enable personalized cancer management

Circulating Tumor Cells (CTC) can be found in the blood of every cancer patient, and are responsible for metastasis. SmartCatch has developed a microtechnology-based innovation for the physical trapping of CTC in a single step preserving the valuable information they contain. The company is lifting the current locks on CTC liquid biopsy, in particular by analyzing larger volumes of blood, in order to make the diagnosis more precise and reliable. The innovative products developed by the company are compact, portable, easy-to-use and adapted to clinical routine. They are intended to develop the use of liquid biopsy of tumor cells as an essential medical procedure for diagnosis, follow-up and personalization of care in medical oncology.

« This first financing round is a major step for the Company. The investment will allow us to consolidate the team by doubling its workforce, propelling the development of our flagship solution. We are really eager to start working with our new board members whose sectoral, financial and international expertise will be very valuable for the Company’s development», announces Aline Cerf, CEO and cofounder of SmartCatch.

« We are confident that with a dynamic entrepreneurial team serving disruptive and innovative liquid biopsy technology, SmartCatch will be able to lift the technological barrier to the capture of circulating tumor cells, paving the way for the expected development of personalized diagnostic, monitoring and treatment solutions in oncology. Kurma Partners, through its specialized fund Kurma Diagnostics2, and alongside IRDI and MCapital, is pleased to support Aline and the SmartCatch team in this project », comments Alain Horvais, Kurma Partners.

« SmartCatch possesses a disruptive technology that will enable the capture of circulating tumor cells in their physiological state in sufficient quantity for use in diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring. We are very pleased to participate in this first round of SmartCatch alongside Kurma Partners and M Capital and to support Aline and her team », Jean-Michel Petit, IRDI Capital Investissement.

« The European Investment Fund and the Occitanie region mandated us to invest in companies developing disruptive technologies with strong growth potential and hold by a talented team. With a unique positioning on liquid biopsy in oncology, SmartCatch and her founder Aline Cerf is perfect in our portfolio. We look forward to being part of this story, working with the team, Kurma Partners, and Irdi Capital Investissement. », concludes Alexandre Scherer & Clement Bauguil, FEOO.

Created in September 2016, SmartCatch is a spin-off of the CNRS jointly founded by an academic team specialized in micro/nanotechnologies from the Laboratory of Architecture and Analysis of Systems (LAAS-CNRS) and urological surgeons from the University Cancer Institute of Toulouse-Oncopole (IUCTOncopole) and the Montauban Uropole.