BCV’s Mechatronic Shape Memory Alloy Guidewire Receives New Financing

December 19, 2023—France-based BCV recently announced that the company has secured €6 million in a Series A round of financing, which will remain open until March 31, 2024. This Series A funding brings the total amount raised since its inception to €13 million.

The company stated that the funding will accelerate the development of BCV’s range of active mechatronic—ie, both mechanical and electronic—guidewires from manufacturing to go-to-market. BCV has built a plant in Reims, France, to secure in-house manufacturing and research and development evolution toward miniaturization.

According to BCV, its mechatronic innovation consists of an “actuable” guidewire controlled by a smart handle and a generator. The system’s shape memory alloy technology enables distal tip control to improve interventionists’ gestures.

The steerable mechatronic guidewire is designed to enhance safety, reduce procedure time, and produce better outcomes while providing support during critical interventions performed for stroke or artery diseases, stated the company.

“BCV creates an opportunity to simplify and speed up access in complicated anatomies, a critical part of all endovascular procedures,” commented Adnan H. Siddiqui, MD, in the company’s press release.

The financing was led by Forepont Capital Partners, a White Plains, New York–based international venture capital firm investing in disruptive biotech and medtech start-ups.

“Forepont is proud to lead BCV’s series A raise to support the advancement of BCV’s superior technology that has already been endorsed by over 100 international interventional radiology experts in the United States and in Europe,” commented Forepont partner Frederic Batoua, in BCV’s press release.

Other investors include California-based Neurotechnology Investors (NTI), France-based MEDCO, and existing French investors.

BCV noted that NTI is composed of physicians from around the world with backgrounds in neurosurgery, neurology, and several vascular specialties who identify, invest, and provide operational expertise for promising medical technologies along their development lifecycle, from concept through commercialization.

Raphaël Blanc, MD, Chairman and Cofounder of BCV, stated in the press release, “Our technology, applied to a guidewire, will be a disruptive change in minimally invasive procedures, improving patients’ outcomes.”

BCV’s CEO Thierry Col added, “This round of financing will enable BCV to progress toward FDA and CE Mark approval. Forepont and NTI will accelerate BCV’s development first in the United States market thanks to a premier network in endovascular access.”

BCV is a medical device company founded in 2016 to provide optimized navigation for endovascular procedures. The core technology was originally developed with help from Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics at Sorbonne University-CNRS, Le Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and INSERM (L’Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale) in Paris, France.

In September 2022, BCV announced that the first-in-human procedure with the company’s steerable mechatronic guidewire for the treatment of stroke was conducted by Michel Piotin, MD, Head of Interventional Neuroradiology at Foundation Rothschild Hospital in Paris, France. The company stated at that time that it would submit data from the first 10 patients treated with the device for a CE Mark filing. BCV has also filed a presubmission application with the FDA.

The BCV system is an investigational device and is not available for commercial sale worldwide, advised the company.