Symphera Secures €2.4 Million in Seed Financing to revolutionize Laparoscopic Surgery

September 16, 2024

• Munich-based MedTech startup Symphera, closes a successful seed financing round led by HTGF with participation from Bayern Kapital, CARMA FUND, UnternehmerTUM Funding for Innovators, Stern Stewart Ventures, IRCAD, and expert business angels.
• The company aims to streamline surgical procedures leading to greatly improved post-operative outcomes for patients.
• Symphera’s mission aligns perfectly with the growing trend in the healthcare sector aimed at making operating rooms more efficient and providing surgeons with enhanced, digitized working environments.

Munich, 16 September 2024 – Symphera, a Munich-based medical device startup, has successfully closed a €2.4 million seed financing round. The round was led by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and saw participation from Bayern Kapital, CARMA FUND, UnternehmerTUM Funding for Innovators, Stern Stewart Ventures, as well as renowned international partners such as IRCAD from Strasbourg and expert business angels from the medical field.

Symphera develops advanced surgical systems for laparoscopic procedures that automate tool-switching. The company’s technology makes manual instrument changes obsolete. With the push of a button, surgeons can seamlessly switch between instruments, much like using a multipen, allowing them to maintain full focus throughout the whole procedure. The goal is to simplify surgical workflows, reduce the operating time and improve post-operative outcomes for patients. The company’s mission aligns with current trends in healthcare that aim to increase operating room efficiency and provide surgeons with better working environments. With its technology, Symphera is well-positioned to meet the demand for more efficient surgical procedures and has gained support from leading experts and institutions specializing in minimally invasive surgery.

With the newly secured funding, Symphera plans to advance the development of its product, conduct initial pre-clinical tests to initiate the preparation for the certification process. These steps are critical in bringing their technology closer to market, with the ultimate goal of transforming laparoscopic surgery and improving patient care.

At IRCAD, we are always on the lookout for innovations that can reshape the landscape of minimally invasive surgery. Symphera’s approach to automating tool-switching is not only innovative—it’s revolutionary. We are excited to support them in bringing this technology to the operating rooms worldwide.

Prof. Jacques Marescaux, Founder and President of IRCAD

With its surgical tool, Symphera addresses the entire spectrum of laparoscopy, from improving the standard workflow to robot-assisted applications, making Symphera a strong venture case in a highly interesting field.

Dr. Jan Engels, Investment Manager at HTGF

With its all-in-one instrument, the Symphera team has developed a way to make shorter operations possible. Symphera’s existing prototype has convinced us and makes Symphera an exciting investment case for us in the medtech sector.

Monika Steger, Managing Director at Bayern Kapital

We are intrigued by the company’s founders and its potential to revolutionize laparoscopic surgery with a straight-forward technology. Its potential future application in robotic and robotic-assisted surgery provides significant further upside potential to Symphera.

Christian Leikert, Managing Partner at CARMA FUND

About Symphera
Symphera is a Munich-based startup that is revolutionizing laparoscopic surgery with an innovative system designed to eliminate the need for manual instrument changes. Founded in 2023, Symphera was incubated at TU Munich and UnternehmerTUM, originating from the University Hospital in Basel, where Dr. med. Conrad Heid, co-founder of Symphera, has been a practicing laparoscopic surgeon. The company’s vision is to significantly simplify the surgical workflow, ultimately leading to greatly improved post-operative outcomes for patients. For more information, please visit www.symphera.io or contact Nico Weigand.

Contact
Nico Weigand, Managing Director, nico.weigand@symphera.io 

About CARMA FUND
CARMA FUND is a venture capital fund initiated by Ascenion GmbH and Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, focused on investing in early-stage developments in the fields of life sciences and healthcare. CARMA FUND I is tailored to the specific timelines and needs of young companies and projects in these areas. The company is based in Munich and Frankfurt am Main. The fund began with a first closing in June 2022 and has ca. 50 million euros under management. www.carma-fund.com

About Bayern Kapital
Bayern Kapital GmbH is the venture/growth capital company of the Free State of Bavaria. It supports innovative high-tech and deep-tech companies in Bavaria through various growth phases, from seed to later stage, with equity capital of between EUR 0.25 and 25 million. Bayern kapital always invests in consortium with private investors and manages specialised investment funds with a volume of around EUR 700 million. Since it was founded in 1995, the wholly owned subsidiary of LfA Förderbank Bayern has invested over EUR 500 million of its own equity capital in more than 320 start-ups and scale-ups from sectors such as life sciences, software & IT, materials & new materials, nanotechnology and environmental technology. This has created over 10,000 permanent jobs in sustainable companies in Bavaria. The active portfolio currently comprises almost 100 companies.
Examples of numerous pioneering success stories that Bayern Kapital has supported from an early stage include Casavi, Catalym, commercetools, egym, EOS, Fazua, Immunic, Isar Aerospace, IQM, Parcellab, Proglove, Qbilon, Riskmethods, SimScale, Sirion, tado and Tubulis among others.

About HTGF – High-Tech Gründerfonds 
HTGF is one of the leading and most active early-stage investors in Germany and Europe, financing start-ups in the fields of Deep Tech, Industrial Tech, Climate Tech, Digital Tech, Life Sciences and Chemistry. With its experienced investment team, HTGF supports start-ups in all phases of their development into international market leaders. HTGF invests in pre-seed and seed phases and can participate significantly in later-stage financing rounds. Across its funds, HTGF has over 2 billion euros under management. Since its inception in 2005, HTGF has financed more than 750 start-ups and successfully sold shares in more than 180 companies.  
Fund investors in the public-private partnership include the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Action, KfW Capital and 45 companies.  
For more information, please visit HTGF.de or follow us on LinkedIn.

Media contact
Tobias Jacob, Senior Marketing & Communications Manager   
T.: +49 228 – 82300 – 121 
t.jacob@htgf.de