French digital healthtech startup, Axomove which offers patients to take charge of their health with one tap of a button via their smartphone has now raised €1.6 million in funding.
The round for the Lille-based startup was led by Spanish fund Faraday Venture Partners, a homecare group Santélys and the Groupe JLO, a company specialised in health and quality working environment.
Founded in 2017 by Pierre-Yves Carlier, a physiotherapist, and Boris Leveque, a former professional handball player accustomed to physiotherapy offices and re-education centers, Axomove has been on the market for over three years.
With this financing round, the company intends to roll out its e-health solution on a large scale to its main target customers: rehabilitation centers, insurers/mutual insurance companies and large corporations. The priorities will be strengthening the sales team, enhancing investments in medico-economic evaluation and reinforcing the therapeutic education content. The company will also continue its R&D efforts to develop new functionalities for patients and practitioners with motion capture technology.
Moving is curing!
While telehealth in Europe is on the rise, more and more patients are having online consultations with their GP or health professional and digital services are claiming a permanent place in the healthcare system. The French telehealth unicorn Doctolib is one of the most incredible success stories in the European telehealth ecosystem. Similarly, headed by Clément Morel, Axomove from the beginning, the vision of four co-founders has been to prevent and treat through movement as many people as possible suffering from acute or chronic physical ailments. Their e-health platform provides customised support for prevention and rehabilitation through video sessions of therapeutic exercises and remote access to health professionals.
Hybrid care for patients on the rise
For rehabilitation centers, Axomove is a SaaS software that allows practitioners to take hybrid care of their patients through personalised self-education and remote education sessions. For corporate employees and insured persons, Axomove offers a complete preventive care solution that allows them to access targeted physical exercise programs to reduce their musculo-articular pain and to benefit from the advice of Axomove’s physiotherapists, who are available for telehealth consultation.
A strategic agreement with Allianz
Since Axomove’s inception, over 5,000 practitioners and 25,000 patients have used its platform. The company has signed structuring partnerships as part of programs to prevent musculoskeletal disorders risks (France Télévision, Allianz) and to improve evidence-based self-rehabilitation practices with hospitals and clinics (Lille University Hospital), as well as pharmaceutical companies (Ipsen).
The partnership signed in April 2022 with Allianz is emblematic of how major insurers can integrate Axomove’s e-health platform into their group benefits contracts. “Axomove’s solution proposes exercises adapted to each activity sector and each workstation in order to best integrate into the company’s work organisation. Thanks to regular warm-up, muscle strengthening and stretching exercises, pain levels can be reduced by up to 60% and disability by up to 50%”, said Pierre Vaysse, Director of Group Health and Welfare at Allianz.
Located in the Euratechnologies campus in Lille, Axomove currently employs 20 people and plans to hire 30 new employees over the next three years.
“From the very first discussions, we were charmed by Axomove’s approach to tackle musculoskeletal disorders (MSD). Indeed, their digital solution, combined with telehealth consultations, is an effective response to the needs of patients in rehabilitation as well as a tool that allows employees to prevent any risk of MSDs with ease. The quality of Axomove’s solution, the professionalism and attentiveness of the team, and their desire to help promoting well-being and healthy living for all are some of the arguments that convinced us to support Axomove in their growth,” said François Xavier Fanard, Managing Director of Faraday Venture Partners.
“Santélys, an establishment specialising in hospitalisation and home health, wishes to pursue its commitment to the public interest by offering innovative care solutions for the benefit of patients and health professionals. Santélys wanted to join forces with Axomove in order to strengthen and develop home rehabilitation through its novel remoterehabilitation system adapted to the practices of healthcare institutions and office-based practitioners. This partnership will also enable Santélys to strengthen its MSD prevention actions with healthcare professionals,” said Frédéric Chaussade, Director of Strategy, Medical Affairs and Innovation at Santélys.
“We are very pleased to have achieved this major step in the development of Axomove, which we have supported since 2016 through our incubation and acceleration programs. We believe in the strength of Axomove’s founding team, with its complementary strengths, to ensure sustainable growth for the company; this is why we have acquired a stake in the startup,” said Etienne Vervaecke, Managing Director of Eurasanté.
“JLO Group is a major player helping organisations define and implement Quality of Work Life (QWL). One of the cornerstones of QWL is to prevent physical risks, of which MSDs represent a growing challenge. We have been working for more than 3 years now on the digitalisation of our offer to adapt it to new working methods and new customer expectations, with the development of innovative devices. Creating a commercial partnership on MSD prevention with Axomove and taking a stake in its capital is in line with our development strategy and the continuity of our joint interventions”, said Jean-Luc Odeyer, President of the JLO Group.
Clément Morel, President and co-founder of Axomove, added: “We are delighted to have brought around the same table very complementary investors; on one hand a financial fund of European dimension and, on the other hand, two corporate funds totally aligned with our ambitions in the field of prevention and physical health rehabilitation. In addition to their financial support, this combination of expertise will enable us to progress faster in our two key markets.”
