Major investment to support Oncomfort’s roadmap
Founded in 2017, Oncomfort is a Belgian scale-up specialized in Digital Sedation™, a completely new method for relieving patients’ pain and anxiety through treatment with clinically proven sessions of therapeutic Virtual Reality. Since the launch of the Sedakit™ for Digital Sedation ™ in Benelux and France in June 2019, over 60,000 patients have been treated and have had their pain and anxiety relieved before, during, and after interventions in many clinical fields such as anesthesia, oncology, interventional radiology and cardiology, as well as pediatrics.
Oncomfort has raised no less than €10 million in a Series A funding round. It plans to use this investment to develop its Digital Sedatio™ solution and accelerate its international expansion on the European and American markets. The investment round was realized with two leading institutional investors: the Swiss Debiopharm, and the French Crédit Mutuel Innovation (CMI). The investment includes continuing support from Wallonia Innovation and Growth (W.IN.G) and the existing investors. Both institutional investors will join Oncomfort’s newly composed Board of Directors.
“We are at a tipping point in our digital therapy,” says Mario Huyghe, CEO of Oncomfort. “The medical community has discovered the advantages and potential of Digital Sedation™ to relieve pain and anxiety without medication. Virtual Reality acts as an enabler for this digital therapy. Yet, Oncomfort’s true potential comes from the scientific evidence of its digital sedation and the multidisciplinary co-creation with the expertise of anesthesiologists, neurologists, psychologists, and hypnotherapists. With this Series A funding, we will accelerate our product development with a broader engineering team and invest in the international expansion of Oncomfort.”
Medical efficacy and optimization of the patient’s journey
“We are delighted to find a scientifically validated digital tool to support the overall journey of patients, which frequently includes various levels of pain, anxiety, and fear. The fact that advanced Virtual Reality in combination with hypnotherapy and integrative therapeutic techniques can be used to effectively sedate patients is truly impressive and offers an interesting option for patients to find physical and emotional relief,” explained Thierry Mauvernay, President of Debiopharm.
“Our investment in Oncomfort’s digital sedation solution is based on the strong potential of digital therapeutics as well as the specific intellectual property and scientific evidence that Oncomfort has built over recent years,” continued Karine Lignel, CEO of Crédit Mutuel Innovation.
“With this investment in Oncomfort, we want to push the boundaries to inspire healthcare stakeholders to acknowledge that there is much more we can do for patients through digital technology,” said Tanja Dowe, CEO of Debiopharm Innovation Fund.
“We were convinced, on the one hand, by the scientific results and the technological developments already achieved by Oncomfort, that will enable an even more personalized patient care thanks to the upcoming new features of the Sedakit™, and on the other hand by the high level of the team and its partners. With this long-term investment, we are committed to supporting Oncomfort’s team to unleash its potential in the European and American market,” explained Delphine Cardi, Principal, and Tanguy Besson, Associate at Crédit Mutuel Innovation.
“Having supported Oncomfort since 2017, W.IN.G is delighted to see it gather substantial funding and will continue to invest in its development, which it regards as promising. By supporting this start-up from the outset, W.IN.G also wanted to assist the emergence of a disruptive technology to relieve the pain of patients in the healthcare sector,” concluded Colin Loyens, Investment Manager.