Ceros Financial Services announced that Ceros Capital Markets, its investment banking division, has completed an approximately $15 million Series A round for GT Metabolic Solutions, which has developed minimally-invasive incisionless bypass technology for bariatric, metabolic and digestive surgery.
Ceros Financial Services will apply the raise to complete initial clinical trials for its incisionless Duodenal Ilial Bypass anastomosis for bariatric and metabolic surgery.
GT Metabolic’s technology enables incisionless bariatric surgery and involves no cutting, no suturing and no permanent implant, enabling these procedures to move to the outpatient surgical setting. The platform works by creating a delayed anastamosis, a technique that involves the use of magnets to connect the tissue and create an anastomosis in a delayed manner without incision and the risk of creating a leak. The company was co-founded by Thierry Thaure, who has 40 years of experience as a medtech entrepreneur, and pioneer surgeon Michel Gagner, M.D., laparoscopic and bariatric surgeon who invented the LapSleeve procedure for bariatric surgery, and who also serves as GT’s Chief Medical Officer.
“We believe that GT Metabolic has created game-changing technology for bariatric surgery to help patients struggling with obesity, a growing and expensive epidemic that leads to other serious health conditions. Too few options currently exist for the surgeon today. The company’s platform is designed to be safer for the surgeon and patient, and more cost-efficient for the healthcare system,” said Mark Goldwasser, CEO of Ceros Financial Services.
“We have developed our platform with the goal of revolutionizing bariatric and metabolic surgery. GT’s technology enables a new portfolio of procedures that will complement and expand the market. We look forward to moving ahead with our clinical trials and in time commercialization of our technology globally,” Thaure said.
According to data from the CDC, the US obesity prevalence was 41.9% in 2017 to March 2020. The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the United States was nearly $173 million in 2019 dollars.
Ceros focuses on fundraising for early-stage medical technology and medical device companies that are developing disruptive technologies, particularly for diagnostic and non-invasive procedures. Ceros completed $117 million in transactions in the medtech sector in 2021 and $145 million since 2020. The firm is targeting to raise $150 million this year, Goldwasser said.
In June, Ceros and Peregrine Ventures led an $18 million financing round for Cordio Medical, which has developed technology to monitor chronic heart failure conditions by analyzing voice recordings in a simple smartphone app.
Ceros also recently placed an additional $10 million for DemaSensor, which designs non-invasive tools that use machine learning and spectroscopy to evaluate skin lesions for cancer. Ceros was an existing investor in the company. Earlier this year, the firm announced a $15 million placement for Pristine Surgical, which has developed a single-use platform for endoscopic procedures.