Burlington, MA-based ConforMIS has tapped government and private funds around the globe to raise $50 million, providing a huge financial boost to expand its business of providing patients with customized knee implants based on CT or MRI scans of their damaged knees.
ConforMIS chairman and CEO Philipp Lang tells me the company drew investments for its Series D financing round from sovereign funds of Kuwait and Singapore, both new investors in the firm, as well as private equity investors such as previous backer Aeris Capital, of Zurich, Switzerland and Palo Alto, CA. Other investors in the financing round, which wrapped up in June, weren’t disclosed because they asked not to be named, Lang says. The capital is expected to fuel growth of the firm’s U.S. and European sales forces, which are focused on selling its approved knee implants. Lang also says the firm’s technology could be used to develop products for other major joints, such as hips and shoulders.
This financing round is notable because of its large size, especially in the midst of an economic slump. It’s also worth noting the significant contributions from foreign sources. For ConforMIS, which provides products for patients whose arthritic or damaged knees require reconstructive surgery, the funding will improve its ability to push adoption of a relatively new way of making knee implants based on the precise dimensions of each patient’s anatomy. Lang, who founded the company in 2004, says his 90-employee operation is poised for significant growth now that the financing deal is closed.
“We did this fundraising to build this into a full-fledged orthopedics company with a much broader product portfolio in the future,” says Lang, a radiologist who practices on a limited basis at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “That doesn’t happen overnight, but that will be an ongoing process over the next couple of years.”
Though it has differentiated products, ConforMIS is up against some much larger and more established competitors in the multibillion-dollar global market for knee implants, such as
