- Sofinnova Partners has closed its oversubscribed €82M MD Start IV medtech fund.
- It plans to launch six to eight medtech companies in Europe and the US over five years.
- MD Start III’s six companies have raised more than €140M in follow-on funding.
Most venture investors wait for founders to pitch them. The medtech team at Sofinnova Partners often starts the company itself. The Paris-based firm announced the final close of its fourth MD Start fund at €82 million. The fund was oversubscribed, and it will launch six to eight medtech companies across Europe and the US over the next five years.
It will back each company from inception through key clinical and operational milestones, giving founders capital and hands-on support. The fund is about 30% larger than MD Start III, the €63 million vehicle that closed in July 2021. That fund’s six companies have collectively raised more than €140 million in follow-on financing, more than double the fund’s own size.
“Sofinnova MD Start is one of the few strategies in Europe focused on creating medtech companies from the ground up. What makes the model distinctive is the active role our team plays in building and supporting every company from day one. This latest fund will allow us to scale that approach and remain a key part of Sofinnova’s platform across the life sciences value chain,” said Antoine Papiernik, chairman and managing partner of Sofinnova Partners.
A fund that builds companies from scratch
Sofinnova’s partners sometimes run what they start. Cécile Dupont, a Sofinnova partner, is chief executive and co-founder of BrightHeart, which raised €11 million in Series A funding in January 2026 for AI that guides clinicians through prenatal heart ultrasounds; Sofinnova is its founding investor. Anne Osdoit, also a partner, is chief executive of Moon Surgical, which raised $55.4 million in May 2023 in a round co-led by Sofinnova and Nvidia’s venture arm, NVentures.
Sofinnova says BrightHeart holds FDA and CE Mark clearance, and that Moon Surgical’s Maestro system holds both and has treated more than 3,700 patients. The wider MD Start portfolio includes LimFlow, acquired by Inari Medical for up to $415 million, and PreCARDIA, acquired by Abiomed. CorWave has raised more than €100 million.
“We are grateful for the continued support of our existing and new limited partners. Their commitment reflects confidence in our active, hands-on approach to company building. With Sofinnova MD Start IV, we look forward to continuing to work closely with engineers, clinicians, and scientists to advance their transformative medical technologies from the lab to the clinic,” said Anne Osdoit, partner at Sofinnova Partners.
Europe’s specialist funds keep getting bigger
The close lands amid a run of bigger raises from other European life-science specialists, even if their strategies differ from MD Start’s company-building model.
Jeito Capital closed its second fund at €1 billion in April, tripling its assets under management to €1.6 billion in five years. Kurma Partners closed Biofund IV at €215 million, 35% above its previous €160 million fund, lifting it to €1 billion in assets under management — though still short of the €250 million target it set at its €140 million first close in October 2024. Lauxera Capital Partners’ second healthtech fund reached €520 million in May, almost double its predecessor and above its €500 million hard cap.
Exits are doing a lot of the convincing. Kurma pointed to sales from its previous fund as momentum for the new one, and Pierre Moustial, co-founding partner of Lauxera, told Tech Funding News that the sale of OrganOx to Japan’s Terumo for about $1.5 billion landed late in the fundraise and pushed the close above the hard cap. Jeito’s exits were EyeBio, bought by Merck for up to $3 billion, and HI-Bio, bought by Biogen for up to $1.8 billion, both in July 2024. MD Start’s version of that story is LimFlow.
Forbion closed its BioEconomy Fund I at its €200 million hard cap in November 2025, up from a €150 million target. TFN has covered its portfolio companies eeden, SOLASTA Bio, and Tropic.
A third Sofinnova close in a year
MD Start IV is the third Sofinnova fund close TFN has tracked since March 2025, after Biovelocita II at €165 million and Capital XI at €650 million in November 2025. In March 2025, the firm said it had raised €1.2 billion across its strategies over the previous year. It now manages more than €4 billion in assets. Osdoit, Dupont, and partner Mano Iyer lead the MD Start strategy, alongside venture partners Gérard Hascoët and Josh Makower.
MD Start III’s six companies pulled in more than double the fund’s own size in follow-on money. Whether six to eight new ones can match that, in a market where even Kurma fell short of its target, is what the next five years will tell.
