Onera, a spin-off from imec and Holst Centre, which is a research collaboration between imec the Netherlands and TNO, announces the successful closure of a seed round of financing enabling the company to develop a wearable, fully disposable, medically graded sleep diagnostic device. The startup’s mission is to bring gold standard sleep diagnostics from the sleep lab to the comfort of the patient’s home. The seed investment is secured by imec’s venturing program imec.xpand and the Dutch development agency Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschapij (BOM).
Sleep related health issues are rapidly becoming one of the biggest healthcare challenges. In recent years, innovation in the field of sleep mainly focused on developing simple screening devices such as smart watches or mattress sensors that provide limited and inaccurate information on sleep quality. Onera competes with the current expensive and inconvenient gold standard solutions for detecting sleep disorders by packing superior sensing hardware and advanced algorithms in a fully disposable medical device. The company expects that their solution will cause a paradigm shift in the diagnose and treatment of sleep disorders and will contribute significantly to the comfort and the general well-being of those affected by sleep related illnesses.
Ruben de Francisco, co-founder and managing director of Onera stated “For far too long people suffering from sleep disorders remained undiagnosed by lack of a reliable alternative to the existing expensive and inconvenient diagnostic tools. Our mission is to give every patient access to a wearable, patch-based and disposable device to accurately diagnose sleep related health issues in the comfort of their own home”. Dr. Hartmut Schneider, associate professor at Johns Hopkins University and Chief Medical Officer at Onera, added “The medical sleep community has been long awaiting a product like Onera’s, making sleep diagnosis broadly accessible without sacrificing quality of care. I am thrilled to be part of the team that will make it possible.”
“Imec has a long history of spinning off successful research results and promising technology into high-tech start-up companies” stated Luc Van den hove, president and Chief Executive Officer at imec. “Onera fits this strategy perfectly: over the years, imec has built a comprehensive portfolio in wireless sensing solutions and flexible electronics, and Onera will leverage this expertise to commercialize innovative sleep diagnostics solutions that meet a rising need in the healthcare sector today”. John Baekelmans, managing director and VP at imec the Netherlands, is proud to add Onera to their portfolio of successful startup companies and adds: “Our aim is to support Onera to turn imec technology into a disruptive healthcare application. Especially here in Eindhoven we have a supporting climate for startups and I am confident the Onera team is perfectly capable to make this a success.”
Tom Vanhoutte, investment partner at imec.xpand, stated “Imec.xpand is investing in companies that have the potential to become global players by disrupting the domain they are active in. We are convinced that the Onera team, also thanks to the close cooperation with imec, has all the tools, skills and expertise to become the ultimate sleep diagnostics company.
“The development of this technology will enable us to meet the major challenges with regards to the rising healthcare costs and shortage of staff in this industry in the near future’, says Stephan Hulsbergen, business developer at BOM Brabant Ventures. ‘Moreover, it can be brought to fruition perfectly in the Brabant region, where deep medical device expertise, sensor and chip design competences and the supporting supply chain can be utilized optimally, so we are happy we can support this venture’, according to Jurgen van Eck, senior investment manager at BOM Brabant Ventures.
For additional information, please contact:
Soukaina Adnane, Co-founder, Soukaina.Adnane@oneramedical.com.
About Onera
Onera is a spin-off company of imec, world leading research center in nanoelectronics and digital technology. Onera’s ambition is to bring innovative medical devices to the market that will help improve the health and quality of life of patients around the world. Onera is headquartered in Eindhoven, Europe’s fastest growing tech hotspot. www.oneramedical.com.
About imec.xpand
Imec.xpand is an early stage and growth fund with a game-changing approach to turn hardware driven nanotechnology innovation into successful global companies. The fund is independently managed by a team of entrepreneurs, seasoned venture capitalists and business experts and is targeting ambitious tech start-ups were imec knowledge, expertise and infrastructure can play a determining role in the success. For more information about imec.xpand please visit us on www.imecxpand.com.
About BOM
BOM (the Brabant Development Agency) works together with businesses to create a robust, sustainable, and future-proof economy for the province of Brabant. We share knowledge, create networks and provide investment capital to innovative Brabant companies and sustainable energy projects. We also encourage innovative foreign companies to settle in Brabant and we assist Brabant companies to extend their reach abroad. Our aim is to stimulate economic growth, increase employment, solve social issues, and create a leading role for Brabant on the world stage.
BOM uses the Brabant Ventures label to focus, using knowledge and capital, on the accelerated and future-proof growth of ambitious Brabant startups and scaleups in high-tech systems and software, agri-food, life sciences & health, supply chain, and the bio-based economy. For more information about BOM please visit us on: www.bom.nl/brabant-ventures.
About imec
Imec is the world-leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies. The combination of imec’s widely acclaimed leadership in microchip technology, profound software and ICT expertise makes imec unique. By leveraging world-class infrastructure and local and global ecosystem of partners across a multitude of industries, imec creates groundbreaking innovation in application domains such as healthcare, smart cities and mobility, logistics and manufacturing, energy, and education.
As a trusted partner for companies, start-ups and universities, imec brings together close to 3,500 brilliant minds from over 70 nations. Imec is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, and has distributed R&D groups at a number of Flemish universities, in the Netherlands, Taiwan, USA, China, and offices in India and Japan. In 2016, imec’s revenue (P&L) totaled 496 million euro. Further information on imec can be found at www.imec-int.com.
About imec - the Netherlands (Holst Centre)
At imec - the Netherlands, a team of more than 130 researchers with 22 different nationalities work together on the latest technology innovations. Part of our DNA is to transform ideas into applicable technologies within the fields of connected healthcare, thin film electronics and Internet of Things. In 2005 we founded, together with TNO, the nanotechnology hub ‘Holst Centre’ with a mission to tune scientific strategies and innovations into industrial needs to create new markets.
