SuperSonic Imagine receives €19 million from historical investors

SuperSonic Imagine's historical investors, Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, Auriga Partners, Crédit Agricole Private Equity, NBGI Ventures, BioAm (managed by CDC Entreprises), Wellington Partners and IXO Private Equity, reiterated their strong support through a combined investment of €19 million in this round.

“We are glad to help reinforce SuperSonic Imagine's capital structure and provide our contribution to the emergence of a new leader in the imaging field, providing not only financing but also our network and industrial expertise, together with Innobio and Canon as new shareholders.”

These funds will be used to accelerate development of SuperSonic Imagine's unique technology and to finance the worldwide commercialization of the Aixplorer^® MultiWave™ Ultrasound System. After an initial focus on breast imaging, the company will now expand the dedicated clinical applications of Aixplorer to include: liver, thyroid, abdominal, musculoskeletal, gynecological and prostate imaging.

Jacques Souquet, founder and CEO of SuperSonic Imagine commented, "We originally set out to raise €25 million and it was a great satisfaction to see this round oversubscribed to bring a total amount of €34.5 million. These funds transform the financial situation of SuperSonic Imagine and give us the means to accelerate our R&D and to penetrate key commercial markets."

"The progress made by Jacques and his team over the last three years is terrific, in particular the completion of the largest breast clinical trial ever undertaken by an ultrasound company, with greater than 1000 patients, to validate this novel approach to ultrasound imaging. We are also pleased with the recent partnership with Hologic Inc. and the launch of the new MultiWave platform." said François Valencony, Managing Director of Mérieux Développement. "We are glad to help reinforce SuperSonic Imagine's capital structure and provide our contribution to the emergence of a new leader in the imaging field, providing not only financing but also our network and industrial expertise, together with Innobio and Canon as new shareholders."

SuperSonic Imagine's Aixplorer^® ultrasound system is the only product on the market that uses revolutionary MultiWave™ Technology to image not one, but two waves to better characterize tissue. One ultrasound wave ensures impeccable image quality and the other, a shear wave, displays in real-time, local tissue elasticity in kilopascals*. Aixplorer is the only system available that can, in real-time, generate, capture and compute shear wave velocity resulting in the bi-dimensional display of true tissue elasticity on a color-coded map. The assessment of tissue stiffness is essential for physicians as it brings more information about a lesion. ShearWave Elastography provides physicians with increased confidence and assurance in the diagnostic process.

ShearWave™ Elastography is different from conventional or strain elastography, which relies on manual compression for palpation and is therefore subjective and operator dependent. Instead, ShearWave Elastography is user-skill independent as it does not rely on compression but is based on the simultaneous use of both ultrasound waves and shear waves to assess tissue stiffness. In addition, results are reproducible and lesions can be monitored over time.

Providing local tissue elasticity information in real time called for major technological innovation in the ultrasound medical imaging field. Capturing shear waves in tissue requires acquisition rates of at least 5,000 Hz while conventional ultrasound acquisition speeds are approximately 100 Hz. With UltraFast™ Imaging, Aixplorer can acquire data at speeds of up to 20,000 Hz, which is 200 times faster than conventional ultrasound. This breakthrough, solely owned and patented by SuperSonic Imagine, represents a novel and competitive alternative to the traditional platforms currently marketed by medical imaging companies.

Laurent Arthaud, General Partner of InnoBio fund commented, "We are very happy to invest in SuperSonic Imagine. This deal is in line with our strategy based on investments in very innovative technologies in France. We have been convinced by the great scientific level of the innovation and by the high level of professionalism of the management."

Dr. Toshiaki Ikoma, Executive Vice President & CTO, Canon Inc. added, "SuperSonic Imagine's UltraFast Imaging is a unique and cutting edge technology with a great potential to expand into various functionalities. We are very pleased with this investment as a symbol of our future collaboration."