Medical devices industry news site MassDevice reported at the end of last week that Israeli medical robotics company Memic Innovative Surgery might be merged into a SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) called Medical Acquisition Corp. Sources inform "Globes" that the deal will value Memic at about $1 billion.
Memic thus approaches the valuations at which successful medical robotics companies Mazor Robotics and Corindus were sold, even though these companies were more mature and more advanced, with sales and market exposure at the time of the deals.
The valuation testifies to the liveliness of the technology market in general and medical technology in particular. The deal could also be good news for Israel company Human Xtensions (TASE: HUMX), which is traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and which is in a similar field.
Just a few months ago, Memic Innovative Surgery raised $96 million and received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its technology. The round was led by Peregrine Ventures and Ceros Ventures, with participation by Accelmed, OurCrowd, and Danny Hadar.
Peregrine Ventures and Accelmed invested in the company at its earliest stages and can expect to post very high returns on their investments. Memic Innovative Surgery was founded in Peregrine Ventures' Incentive technology incubator, in which Accelmed also invested from its first fund, with Mori Arkin as an anchor investor.
Memic Innovative Surgery has developed a robotic device for transvaginal surgery that enables surgery to be performed with fewer incisions leading to shorter and easier recovery by the patient. Commenting on its last fund-raising round, company founder and CEO Dvir Cohen, who has a background in precision robotics in the IDF, said, "I wanted to give the device the flexibility of the human arm and the intuitiveness of using the hand. The surgeon operates the devices through what looks like a game console, and the motor at the end of the arm of our device translates movements outside the patient into movements of the arm within the body."
The company's chairperson in Maurice Ferre, who is chairperson and CEO of Israeli non-invasive surgery technology company Insightec. He was also CEO of MAKO Surgical Corp., sold to Stryker Corp. for $1.65 billion in 2013.
Memic Innovatice Surgery hired some of MAKO's team to build its sales force in the US. Cohen has said in the past that, together with the company's unique technology and the FDA's broad approval, this enabled it to raise $96 million in its last private fund-raising round. These factors also apparently lead to the SPAC's interest in the company.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on May 23, 2021
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