SAVA—a company developing the first-ever multi-molecule biosensing wearable capable of detecting biomarkers just below the skin’s surface, enabled by its novel microsensing technology—announced it has raised $8 million in a seed funding round led by Balderton Capital and Exor Ventures.
Launched by Renato Circi and Rafael Michali, bioengineers from Imperial College London, SAVA has developed a novel microsensing device to detect molecules in the interstitial fluid just under the skin. And its smart connected wearable patch has been designed to streamline this data and deliver it directly to a user’s phone.
SAVA’s first microsensor is focused on glucose monitoring for people with diabetes, which is expected to impact 1 in 8 adults – which is approximately 783 million people by 2045. And people with diabetes depend on accurate glucose monitoring technologies to adequately manage their condition. This has seen a growing number of health institutions globally make CGMs a default for diabetes care.
The NHS alone has committed to providing every person in the UK with Type I diabetes with a CGM by 2025. Due to the scale of the diabetes epidemic worldwide, the CGM market is worth $8.2 billion and growing 10% year-on-year.
The company recently gained approval from the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to proceed with clinical trials on patients with diabetes, which will help Sava validate its breakthrough technology on a larger scale. The MHRA validation process is one of the most stringent processes worldwide, assessing the device’s safety and performance and the design of the upcoming clinical investigation.
SAVA’s microsensor will not only offer pain-free, real-time insights for users but will do so at a much more affordable and accessible price, with an upcoming clinical study scheduled to start with world-leading investigators from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
SAVA’s sensor will also be able to monitor multiple molecules simultaneously. Multi-analyte sensing unlocks the ability to monitor a wide range of conditions—from chronic conditions to next-gen well-being applications, drug adherence to personalized therapy, and more. SAVA aims to power the next era of healthcare.
This funding round brings the total raised by the London-based startup to $13 million from leading VC firms, angel investors, the European Union, and the UK Government (through Innovate UK). And the team rapidly grew to over 40 people, including some of the creators of the Abbott, Dexcom, and Medtronic CGMs.
The funding will be used to expand SAVA’s team further, design its next-generation product line with high-throughput manufacturing capability, and demonstrate the platform’s clinical performance.
KEY QUOTES:
“At SAVA we are tackling preventable illness by building a new operating system for health monitoring. Our microsensor will revolutionize healthcare by making world-leading monitoring technology available to all. With this capital, we can accelerate our goal of creating a new paradigm for healthcare – preventative, personalized, and painless.”
- Renato Circi, co-founder of SAVA
“SAVA’s mission is to transform healthcare from a curative to a preventative system by empowering people to take control of their health through effortless access to real-time health insights. The current healthcare system cannot meet this demand and SAVA will bridge this gap by providing the foundational architecture of a new biosensing ecosystem.”
- Rafael Michali, co-founder of SAVA
“This could be the defining product in personal health monitoring in the coming decade and an essential tool for patients and clinicians in diagnosing and treating many chronic diseases as well. Renato and Rafael have a compelling user-centric vision to revolutionize chronic disease management and preventative care, and the credibility and knowledge to execute in this vital area.”
- James Wise, Partner at Balderton
“SAVA’s unique approach and novel technology underline its potential to become a foundation of a new healthcare system. It offers a platform that addresses the needs of both patients and healthcare systems and which will allow other companies to build upon.”
- Noam Ohana and Ileana Pirozzi, of Exor Ventures
