CorWave Raises Funds to Finance Its First Industrial Deployment

June 20, 2023—CorWave, a Clichy, France-based company developing cardiac assist devices including a wave membrane heart pump, announced the second closing of a Series C funding that raised €61 million to support its first industrial deployment and entry into clinical trials.

According to the company, the investment will enable CorWave to finance the next stages of its development. The medical devices company will soon be inaugurating its manufacturing facility on the banks of the River Seine in Clichy.

The main investors of this second closing were the Société de Projets Industriels (SPI) fund, managed by Bpifrance on behalf of the French government as part of France 2030, and leading family-controlled entrepreneurial groups were Exor Ventures, controlled by the Agnelli family (Ferrari, Stellantis), and Vlerick Group (textile and metal engineering).

The first closing of Round C raised €35 million from returning investors (Sofinnova Partners, Seventure Partners, Bpifrance, Novo Holdings, and Ysios Capital) and new investors (EIC Fund, Arbevel, and M&L Healthcare). That transaction was the first direct equity investment by the European Commission since its creation through the EIC Fund.

Magali Joëssel, Managing Director of the SPI fund, commented in the company’s press release, “We were particularly impressed by CorWave’s value proposition. Its wave membrane heart pump will provide a new solution to a major public health issue: heart failure. Supporting CorWave’s industrialization project is fully in line with the SPI fund’s raison d’être, being a partner to industrial start-ups manufacturing high value-added products in France.”

Louis de Lillers, Chief Executive Officer of CorWave, added, “We are delighted to welcome new reference shareholders with an in-depth understanding of the industrial world. The SPI fund has financed about 20 major industrial projects since 2015. Exor Ventures and Vlerick Group were started by major industrial families. These investments are the result of demanding selection processes that demonstrate the relevance of our disruptive product and the seriousness of the work carried out by our teams. These funds will enable us to pursue our mission with the aim of improving the lives of advanced heart failure patients around the world.”