C.P. Group Innovation led the financing for the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company. The Stanford President’s Venture Fund, Hillhouse Investment and Gaorong Ventures also participated. It brings Axoft’s total funding to more than $60 million to date.
Axoft plans to use its funds to expand current clinical trials globally and progress U.S. regulatory efforts for its implantable BCIs. The company received approval to conduct the first-in-human studies at the end of 2024. It launched the FINESSE study about a year ago with first-in-human cases.
It also plans to use the capital to build a good manufacturing practice (GMP) facility to mass produce its BCIs.
The company develops soft materials that mimic the mechanical properties of brain tissue. It tailors them to improve the stability of the tissue-electronics interface for implantable BCIs (iBCIs). The company built its BCIs using its proprietary Fleuron material, which enables high-quality neural data capture over longer periods of time due to its biocompatibility.
Axoft designed its technology to enable a high-resolution depth neural interface using minimally invasive surgery techniques. It has significant biocompatibility and softness to reduce scar tissue and implant drift within the brain over time. The material has long-term signal stability, too, tracking electrical activity of single neurons for over a year in animal models. Additionally, Axoft touts a high density of sensors and stimulators, maximizing the information exchanged between the brain and electronics.
In the coming months, the company plans to build out its GMP cleanroom in Boston and expand its software engineering, microfabrication and chemistry teams.
Dr. Paul Le Floch, co-founder and CEO of Axoft, said:
“At Axoft, the neural data quality we unlock doesn’t just make iBCIs more effective, it opens the door to minimally invasive surgery, allows access to deeper brain regions and enables the next generation of AI-driven real-time decoding. Better neural signals are the foundation everything else is built on. This new funding and strategic support from C.P. Group Innovation allows us to expand our work into global markets. With multiple in-human clinical studies underway, and several industrial and academic organizations already using Fleuron for their own research and development, Axoft is well-positioned to unlock new treatments for patients suffering from neurological disorders, while also benefitting the broader biomedical engineering community by making our novel material platform widely available.”
