DLA Piper advise groundbreaking UK brain monitoring start up CoMind on funding round

DLA Piper has advised CoMind, a start-up that is developing groundbreaking technology that monitors blood flow and pressure in the brain, on its latest fundraising round. The London based company has most recently received USD60mn in new investment led by venture capital firm Plural, taking total funding since launch to over USD100mn.

The start-up was founded by James Dacombe in 2018 when he was a teenager. The company has developed a device that does away with the traditional, and more risky, method of puncturing a patient’s skull in order to insert a pressure sensor. It does this by using low-powered infrared lasers to monitor cerebral blood flow, intracranial pressure and autoregulation. These are particularly important metrics for patients who have suffered traumatic brain injury or during heart bypass surgery.

CoMind received its first investments from London-based Entrepreneur First and LocalGlobe. James also received a USD100,000 grant from the Theil Fellowship, a programme run by tech billionaire Peter Thiel for entrepreneurs aged 22 or under who don’t have a university degree.

CoMind has already completed clinical trials on surgical patients under general anesthetic in Barcelona and at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London for traumatic brain injuries and published two research papers this year. It is currently recruiting in the US for its third clinical trial, to help obtain approval from the US Food and Drug Administration.

The CoMind transaction team was led by James and his Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Walsh.

The DLA Piper team advising on the fundraising was led by Corporate Partner Alexander Kolmakov, Employment Partner Vinita Arora, Corporate Senior Associate Alex Potop and Corporate Associate Annisa Chan.

James Dacombe, founder of CoMind, said, “The brain is the most important organ in the body and yet it’s the least monitored at the patient bedside. Our vision is to make this form of brain monitoring as common as having your blood pressure taken. The fundraising that DLA Piper has facilitated will take us a step closer to that vision and I’d like to thank the team for their professionalism and support in this most recent fundraising.”

Alexander Kolmakov, Corporate Partner at DLA Piper, commented, “It has been a privilege to have helped James, Kevin and their team raise money for CoMind. The equipment that it is developing has the potential to change care standards dramatically whilst also reducing cost in hospitals around the world. We look forward to following the company in its next phase of development and hope to support it as it grows.”

Vinita Arora, Client Relationship partner for CoMind at DLA Piper, added: “We started supporting CoMind a number of years ago. To see how far the company has come in such a short space of time and having been a small part of that journey has been an honour.”