Medi-tate raises $20m from Japanese co Olympus

Xenia Venture Capital (TASE: XENA) today announced that Medi-tate had raised $20 million from Japanese medical devices company Olympus. Xenia holds 14% of Medi-tate. Xenia's share price leaped 28% following the announcement, pushing its market cap up to NIS 59 million.

Medi-tate is a medical devices company that has developed a product for treatment of benign prostate tumors. This product has been approved for marketing in Europe. The product shrinks the tumors in a minimally invasive way, without surgery and with less damage to healthy tissue surrounding the tumor. The company says that use of its product therefore incurs less risk of impotence and loss of urinary control. To date, Medi-tate has carried out one small clinical trial that confirmed its claims.

Under the new agreement, Olympus also obtained Medi-tate's distribution rights in Japan and an option to acquire the company. Xenia reported that, following the current agreement, its assets would increase by NIS 5 million and would increase by NIS 90 million more if Olympus were to acquire Medi-tate. It therefore follows that if an exit takes place, Xenia's proceeds will total NIS 100 million.

In 2016, Xenia reported that Medi-tate had raised $4 million from a medical devices company at a $50 million company value, after money, and that the investor had obtained an option to acquire Medi-tate as a company value of $100-200 million.

The controlling shareholder in Xenia is Centaurus Investments with a 55% stake. Centaurus is fully owned by a family trusteeship of UK businessperson Vincent Tchenguiz, who has invested a great deal in Israel in recent years.

Xenia holds a 50% share in VLX, a Jerusalem technology incubator supported by the Israel Innovation Authority. In addition to Medi-tate, Xenia has holdings in companies such as PolyPid, a company developing methods of delivering drugs to their targets that tried to hold an IPO on Nasdaq this year, but has not yet managed to do so; KeepMed, a company for treatment of sleep apnea that recently raised $3 million; video games company Playcast; VOD media company Saguna; and others.

Medi-tate was represented by Atir Jaffe, Yael Shimon-Many and Shine Shaham from Pearl Cohen Zedek Latzer Baratz law firm

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on November 4, 2018

Medi-tate raises $20m from Japanese co Olympus

Medi-tate has developed a product for treatment of benign prostate tumors.