Blue chip investors back new MedTech investment company

SMA, is a newly formed company specializing in medical technology investments, with a focus on Sweden, Scandinavia and Western Europe. The company is financed by leading institutions and prominent private investors, whose initial commitments amount to approximately SEK 1.2 billion.

The initiator behind Segulah Medical Acceleration is Gabriel Urwitz, founder of Nordic private equity fund group Segulah. SMA is an investment company, whose objective is to help young, innovative medtech companies in Europe accelerate growth and to reach commercially sustainable market positions. SMA is an independent company and has no links with Segulah’s private equity operation.

Gabriel Urwitz said: “There are many promising companies with a finished product and technology ready to go to market. But they often lack the financing as well as the know-how and networks necessary to evolve into a company with the potential to reach the global market. Unique ideas that can affect public health must be supported. The kind of echo systems you find within tech and biotech in Europe currently do not exist in the medtech area.”

Initial funding of Segulah Medical Acceleration amounts to approximately SEK 1.2 billion. The financing has been provided by leading institutional and private investors in Sweden. They include the Swedish state’s venture capital fund investor Saminvest, the Fourth Swedish National Pension Fund (AP4), the SEB-foundation and the IMAS Foundation. The institutions represent 60 percent of the capital. Gabriel Urwitz and the SMA team have invested some 20 per cent, and a group of private investors the remaining 20 percent.

SMA focuses on Scandinavian or other Western European companies, active within the various medtech areas, such as diagnostics, medical devices, life science tools, and digital technologies (AI). The strategy is centered on acquiring minority shareholdings, with targeted funding tickets in the range of SEK 50-150m. SMA is structured as a limited liability company, in contrast to a private equity fund, emphasizing its long-term investment strategy. This provides better opportunity to achieve full potential from the investments.

Managing Partner and co-founder of Segulah Medical Acceleration is Roger Gunnarsson, who has 25 years’ experience as an international investment banker based in London, and with a focus on the healthcare sector. Roger Gunnarsson: “I have, in previous roles, come across many examples in Scandinavia and Europe of young companies with excellent products, often based on groundbreaking science. Not infrequently, the same companies lack sufficient funding and value-adding investors with the expertise required to help them establish ‘commercial proof of principle’ and carve out a sustainable position in the industry eco system. As a result, mistakes are sometimes made, causing delays or pre-mature divestitures. Our objective is providing that strategic connectivity and guidance, thereby helping to achieve full potential.

Peter Sjöstrand is Chairman of the Board, co-founder and a member of SMA’s Strategic Advisory Board. He has previously been Executive Vice President and CFO at Astra, and Chairman of the Boards of both Gambro and Meda.

Other members of SMA’s Strategic Advisory Board are Marco Gadola, boardmember and previously CEO of Straumann Group and also, inter alia, chairman of Audiology; Maria Carell, CEO of RG Holding and prior to that CEO of Exeltis USA and Q-Med; Johan Öberg, CEO and senior partner at Boston Consulting Group, BCG, Stockholm.

Chairman of SMA’s Scientific Advisory Board and member of the investment team is Jan Andersson, professor emeritus at the Karolinska Institute’s Infectious Diseases Unit, who previously held the position of Director of Research and Innovation in the Stockholm Region, and before that was Vice Chancellor at the Karolinska Institute.

SMA’s Scientific Advisory Board also comprises professors Anna Blom at Lund University, and Jonas Frisén, Olle Kämpe and Klas Kärre, all three at the Karolinska Institute and professor Kevin Tracey, Zucker School of Medicine in New York. Four of six members of the Board are or have been members of the Nobel Prize Committee in physiology or medicine.

To date, Segulah has made two investments – one in CytaCoat (www.cytacoat.com), which originates from the Karolinska Institute. CytaCoat has developed a novel antimicrobial way of treating the surface of medical products, with a view to combatting disease-related infections. The second investment is in Vidya, in London (www.vidyahealth.com), a molecular diagnostics company.

For further information, please contact:
Roger Gunnarsson, Managing Partner, +46 73 850 6732,
gunnarsson@segulahmedical.com
Gabriel Urwitz, founder and member of the board, +46 70 590 89 00,
urwitz@segulah.se