Analysis

November 26, 2024

Europe's most active early-stage healthtech investors in 2024

Meet the investors backing the most healthtechs at pre-seed, seed and Series A

European healthtech funding is back on the up in 2024 after two successive years of falling from the record $18.1m raised in 2021.

Startups in the sector have picked up $10.4bn so far this year, according to Sifted data, an increase on the $9.7bn raised in 2023 (comparable Dealroom data). 

With more than a month left to play with, and a reporting lag that typically means a number of smaller rounds don’t get clocked until further down the line, that number’s only going to track north.

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The biggest raises so far this year are Swiss drug development company EraCal Therapeutics’s €235m and Germany's cancer treatment company ITM Radiopharma’s €188m.

UK-based period tracking app Flo Health, which became Europe’s first femtech unicorn when it raised a $200m Series C in July, also raised big. As did French insurtech Alan, which picked up a €173m Series F in September.

But at the other end of the funding scale, which investors have been driving the most early-stage (pre-seed to Series A) healthtech deals into European startups in 2024? 

Sifted dug into its proprietary data — and confirmed the numbers with the most active — to find out. Accelerators were not included. If you think an investor is missing from this list, email kai@sifted.eu.

Calm/Storm

Deals: 33 (10 new, 23 follow-on)

HQ: Vienna

Fund focus: Calm/Storm invests in digital health in Europe and the US. The VC writes cheques of €250k-1m and is investing out of its second fund — which it’s still raising. Calm/Storm tells Sifted that it's closed above the €20m target it set, with a cap of €40m, and it plans to do a final close in Q1 2025.

Notable deals in 2024:

  • Béa Fertility, a UK-based fertility startup. 
  • Meela, a Swedish therapist booking platform.
  • Univa, a UK-based startup building digital care tools for eating disorders.

Sofinnova Partners

Edward Kliphuis and Simon Turner, Sofinnova partners

Deals: 32 (13 new, 19 follow-on)

HQ: Paris, with offices in London and Milan

Fund focus: Sofinnova specialises in life sciences, with a focus on healthcare and sustainability. The fund has $2.8bn in assets under management across seven funds. The VC invests from seed to Series A, with some Series B deals if it’s the first round a company is raising.

Notable deals:

  • Asceneuron, a Swiss biotech developing therapeutics for neurodegenerative disorders.
  • Freya Biosciences, a Danish startup developing treatment for women’s reproductive health.
  • Inventiva, a French biotech developing therapies in the areas of fibrosis, lysosomal storage disorders and oncology.

Elaia Partners

Deals: 29 (10 new, 19 follow-on)

HQ: Paris

Fund focus: Elaia backs startups from inception to IPO across SaaS, healthtech, fintech, marketing and security. Its most recent fund was a €200m pot raised in March 2023. 

Notable deals:

  • Doccla, a Swedish startup building virtual ward tech.
  • Surgar, a French startup developing augmented and virtual reality for surgery.
  • Pixacare, a French platform for monitoring wounds.

Zürcher Kantonalbank

Deals: 22 (6 new, 16 follow-on)

HQ: Zurich, Switzerland

Fund focus: Zürcher Kantonalbank is a Swiss bank which backs startups from pre-seed to Series A. It tells Sifted it is one of the most active investors in Switzerland and has supported around 300 startups with $283m in venture capital since 2005. 

Notable deals:

  • Lymphatica Medtech, a Swiss startup developing a wearable medical device to help patients suffering from lymphatic diseases.
  • Hemotune, A Swiss medtech building a device to purify blood.
  • Qumea, a Swiss patient monitoring platform.

Scottish Enterprise

Deals: 23 

HQ: Glasgow, Scotland

Fund focus: Scottish Enterprise is a government agency and takes a back seat in rounds — investing alongside private lead investors who pitch deals to the organisation. It typically invests in life sciences startups.

Notable deals:

  • Nebu-Flow, a Glasgow-based spinout developing drug delivery tech.
  • Aurum Biosciences, a Scottish biotech developing a novel drug for therapeutics and multiple diagnostics.
  • Novosound, a Scottish spinout developing ultrasound sensors.

Mercia Ventures

Deals: 19 (8 new, 11 follow-on)

HQ: Henley, UK

Fund focus: Mercia invests mainly at seed and Series A, focusing on AI in drug discovery, precision medicine, cell and gene therapy and surgical tech. Mercia has £913m assets under management.

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Notable deals:

  • Scalpel AI, a UK-based AI-powered platform that tracks surgical instruments.
  • Semble, a UK-based startup building medical practice management software.
  • Alesi Surgical, a UK-based startup building medical devices to reduce surgical smoke in operating theatres.

YZR Capital

YZR founders Reinhard Meier and Markus Feuerecker

Deals: 18 (10 new, 8 follow-on)

HQ: Munich, Germany

Fund focus: YZR invests from pre-seed to Series A, in digital health and medtech. It announced a first close of its first fund, with €60m in the pot, in December 2022.

Notable deals:

  • Esper Bionics, a Ukrainian-US developing building prosthetic limbs.
  • ApoQlar, a German startup building software for medical imaging, diagnostics and pre-operative planning.
  • Deemea, a French data platform for clinical studies.

SFC Capital

Joseph Zipfel (Chief Investment Officer), Stephen Page (Chief Executive Officer) and Angelika Burawska (Chief Operating Officer)

Deals: 18 (13 new, 5 follow-on)

HQ: London

Fund focus: SFC Capital only backs startups eligible for SEIS and EIS funding — a UK government scheme which aims to incentivise people to support early-stage British companies by offering income tax relief on investments. It’s a generalist investor but tells Sifted its biggest areas of investment are B2B SaaS, climate tech and medtech. SFC typically writes tickets of £100k-500k. It was the UK’s most active early-stage investor when Sifted pulled the data earlier this year.

Notable deals:

  • 4D Biomaterials, a German startup developing implantable medical devices.
  • NIQS, a UK-based spinout developing non-invasive glucose monitoring solutions for diabetes patients.
  • Medwise, a UK-based Q&A platform for clinicians.

Verve Ventures

Deals: 16 (3 new, 13 follow-on)

HQ: Zurich, Switzerland

Fund focus: Verve is a deeptech fund focused on climate tech, the future of computing including AI, robotics and health.

Notable deals: 

  • Limula, a Swiss startup developing a cell manufacturing device for gene therapy.
  • Sympatient, a German digital clinic for psychotherapy.
  • Earlysight, a Swiss startup building a medical device to help detect and treat eye diseases.

Speedinvest

Deals: 13 (6 new, 7 follow-on)

HQ: Vienna, with offices in London, Paris, Berlin and Munich

Fund focus: Speedinvest is a generalist early-stage investor, focusing on climate tech, deeptech, fintech, health and techbio, marketplaces and consumer and SaaS. It closed its fourth early-stage fund at €350m in January. 

Notable deals:

  • Flinn, an Austrian startup using AI to automate regulatory compliance for medtechs.
  • Sona, a UK-based app to manage frontline workers, including those in social care.
  • RoClub, a German startup providing remote MRI and CT scans.

Kai Nicol-Schwarz

Kai Nicol-Schwarz is a reporter at Sifted. He covers UK tech and healthtech, and can be found on X and LinkedIn