Chinese medtech startup SiBionics has raised nearly 500 million yuan ($71.7 million) in a Series D round of financing to expand its development of AI-based medical devices for chronic disease management.
Shenzhen-based SiBionics secured the new financing from lead investors Shanghai Biomedical Industrial Equity Investment Fund and Guangdong Chinese Medicine and Mass Health Fund, the startup announced on Wednesday.
The two lead investors are both government-backed vehicles. The former was set up in late 2020 with a planned fund size of up to 50 billion yuan ($7.2 billion), while the latter was launched in 2021, targeting to raise 30 billion yuan ($4.3 billion) in total.
Private equity (PE) firm Industrial Securities Capital, early-stage tech investor Next Capital, and Hong Kong-listed property developer China New Town participated in SiBionics’ Series D round.
Dealmaking in the area of innovative medical devices remains relatively strong despite the overall slowdown in fundraising activity. A 2022 report by Silicon Valley Bank shows that healthcare continues to be one of the most favoured sectors among venture investors, especially medical technology.
In the first half of 2022, global venture investors poured a total of over $38 billion into the healthcare sector, down from its peak in H1 2021 but 37% higher than that of H1 2020.
SiBionics — whose business lines cover brain-computer interface, artificial intelligence (AI)-powered medical imaging, medical big data, and medical robotics — is one of the medtech companies in China that has managed to attract investors in a capital-restricted environment.
The Series D round comes less than one year after the completion of its Series C round of 800 million yuan ($114.6 million). It raised the previous round through three tranches in about 12 months, including the last tranche of over 500 million yuan ($71.7 million) led by China’s CITIC Private Equity (CPE) and China Life Investment’s sub-fund in January.
Other investors include Source Code Capital, Riverhead Capital, Qianhai FOF, and Fortune Capital.
SiBionics plans to invest the new funds for market expansion in China and overseas, new product R&D, and the extension of its fully-automated production line, the startup said.
Founded in 2015, the startup is developing a pipeline of products and solutions targeting diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa, diabetes mellitus and its complications, gastrointestinal cancers, as well as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. It focuses on continuous glucose monitoring, diabetic retinopathy screening, and gastric cancer screening for patients in need of disease screening, diagnostics, chronic condition management, and cancer treatment.
