D-Sight has raised one million euros from the venture capital fund Clave Capital to advance the therapy it has developed for the early stages of diabetic retinopathy, the most common microvascular complication in people with diabetes and the leading cause of visual impairment and preventable blindness in the adult population.
The funding obtained will serve the startup to advance in the first phase of clinical validation of the drug, which is cheaper, less invasive, and has fewer adverse effects than currently available treatments on the market, basically laser and intravitreal injections. "We are facing an unmet medical need worldwide for which D-Sight has an innovative, low-cost, non-invasive, safe, and effective solution," explains CEO and co-founder, Carla Maté.
The startup, based in Barcelona, will thus continue validating its treatment for diabetic retinopathy in successive clinical phases that will allow it to obtain its commercial license from large pharmaceutical companies to sell the product. In the long term, the company plans to research and develop new therapies for the treatment of other neurodegenerative retinal diseases, such as glaucoma, a totally asymptomatic disease that, when it presents symptoms, is in its most advanced stages and is irreversible, without being able to recover vision loss.
D-Sight is a spin-off of the Vall d'Hebron Institut de Recerca (VHIR) recently constituted. It represents the first case of the entrepreneur in residence model promoted by the VHIR, with a history of 15 companies constituted. With this pioneering model, members of the institution offer their professional services to projects in the company creation phase with the aim of accelerating and strengthening their trajectory. In addition, at D-Sight, its CEO and co-founder has ended up integrating into the entrepreneurial team.
Likewise, the startup has its origin in a line of research with more than ten years of trajectory within the Diabetes and Metabolism research group of the VHIR and the Endocrinology and Nutrition Service of the Vall d'Hebron Hospital. At the forefront of these studies are the other co-founders of the company, doctors Rafael Simó and Cristina Hernández.
The investment in D-Sight represents the first operation that Clave Capital has carried out in Catalonia. The independent investment manager specializes in innovative projects and industrial SMEs. With offices in Madrid, Valencia, Pamplona, and now in Barcelona, it has 20 years of experience investing in and accompanying technology companies from their initial stages. Currently, it manages more than 90 million euros in sectors such as health, nutrition, and agrifood.
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