Yorkshire medtech Eventum Orthopaedics has raised £2.5m in a Series A funding round.
The investment in Eventum, which has developed a device that could improve the success of knee replacement surgery, includes funding from NPIF – Mercia Equity Finance, which is managed by Mercia and is part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, Mercia’s EIS funds and private investors, including orthopaedic surgeons.
Eventum’s Quadsense device measures the forces of a patient’s quadriceps muscles across the range of leg motions before and during surgery, enabling surgeons to position the kneecap in such a way that the patient retains the same muscle balance and regains normal knee function.
The Ilkley-based company was founded in 2020 by John Naybour and Paul Atherton, who between them have almost 50 years’ experience in developing and marketing orthopaedic devices.
They designed Quadsense with input from leading surgeons and raised an initial £1.4m from NPIF – Mercia Equity Finance and private investors in 2021 to help develop the product and gain regulatory approval.
It has now achieved UKCA approval and the ISO13485 standard for medical devices, and has been used in 20 operations in New Zealand in conjunction with robotic surgery.
The latest funding will enable the company to begin production, expand its sales and technical team and apply for FDA approval in the US. Eventum currently employs a team of five but plans to expand that to 12 in the year ahead.
Globally, around two million patients a year have knee replacements, with the figure expected to rise to 3.5m by 2030.
Naybour, Eventum’s CEO, said: “The Eventum team have done a massive amount of work in a short space of time in developing Quadsense and getting it approved for clinical use. We are now excited to start scaling up the team to commercialise the product, as well as bringing further innovations to the orthopaedics market.”
