Chinese company BOE has invested $50 million in Israeli company Cnoga Medical for 23% of the company's shares, reflecting a company value of $217 million, the two companies today reported. The shares given to BOE were newly issued, not sold shares. BOE is a Chinese laboratory equipment company that wants to establish itself as a leader in the medical sector. According to the BOE, Cnoga's product, developed by the company since 2004, and which facilitates medical monitoring and processing of information on the cloud, matches BOE's strategic plan.
The deal also includes the signing of an agreement for joint marketing of Cnoga's products in China and development of a new line of products for the professional health market.
Cnoga, based in Or Akiva, has developed a series of devices for non-invasive measurement of a range of health parameters through optical diagnosis of the changing color shades of a finger. Among other things, pulse, blood pressure, cardiac output, hemoglobin, ph, red blood vessel count, oxygen saturation, and other parameters can be measured in this way. The company's products are unique in both the way the information is obtained and the way it is handled on the cloud.
In 2014, the company announced that it had received a $12.5 million investment from Chinese fund GoCapital. The company's products are distributed in a number of countries, including Italy, Brazil, and China, and are approved for marketing in 35 countries.
Cnoga was founded by Dr. Yosef Segman, holder of a PhD in mathematics, who previously founded OPlus Technologies, sold to Intel. The original goal was to measure blood sugar levels non-invasively, but this proved to be an extremely difficult parameter to measure. The idea for the company actually arose in China, when Segman photographed many Chinese people, and noticed a difference in their skin hues, and differences between their skin and that of Westerners. He thought, however, that they all had one thing in common - a redness in complexion resulting from the flow of blood.
The company previously cooperated with US company Texas Instruments, with support from the Israel-US Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation. Texas Instruments also led the Cnoga's first financing round, in which $8 million was raised.
Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on March 6, 2017
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