Swiss startup CHD has come through the third and final stage of Venture Kick, bringing its total from the programme to CHF 150,000 (about €160,000), the most any startup can receive from it. The money backs a fabric belt that CHD is designing so doctors can monitor mother and baby through a high-risk pregnancy at home.
Venture Kick is a philanthropic programme, paid for by private donors, that has backed research-based startups in Switzerland since 2007. It pays out in three steps: a CHF 10,000 grant first, then convertible loans of CHF 40,000 and CHF 100,000. Those loans turn into shares when the company next raises a significant equity round, and each stage also brings coaching and introductions to investors.
CHD, short for Connected Health Development, was founded in February and is based at Biopôle, a life sciences campus in Epalinges, just north of Lausanne in French-speaking western Switzerland. That same month it joined Vanguard, the campus’s six-month accelerator for digital health companies, and Venture Kick first selected it in May.
The second stage followed in June, when CHD signed a CHF 40,000 loan agreement and said the money would go towards developing, testing and validating prototypes ready for manufacturing. In an interview published by Venture Kick, the company said the funding was “helping us bridge the gap between pre-seed and seed stage”.
That seed round has not yet been reported closed. In June, CHD said it was targeting €1M for the first tranche, with two new investors already on board or in negotiation. Laurent Vandebrouck, the chief executive, has since said the final Venture Kick money counts towards that tranche, and that other private investors and a foundation have committed or are expected to join.
Inside The MONI2 Belt
MONI2 is a smart-textile belt worn around the abdomen, with sensors spread across the bump. They record the baby’s heart rate, movements and position, along with the mother’s heart rate and her contractions, the tightening of the womb that can signal labour. CHD says it reads the baby’s heart with an electrocardiogram (ECG), which picks up the heart’s electrical signals, rather than with Doppler ultrasound.
Mothers see simple readings in a smartphone app, while clinicians get the full data through a secure web portal. That portal also carries the company’s predictive indicators, which use machine learning and are meant to flag signs that a baby’s well-being is compromised or that a birth may come too early.
According to the company, the belt can be washed up to 40 times and needs neither gel nor a nurse to fit it, so women can wear it through normal daily life. “Usability is key for us,” Vandebrouck said in a Biopôle profile published in May.
CHD plans two versions of the belt, one for medical use and a simpler one for consumers. For production, it has a partnership with what it calls a leading global smart-textile manufacturer, which it has not named.
Clinical Work In Lille And Lausanne
To test the belt in clinics, CHD has turned to Lille, a city in northern France near the Belgian border. In May the company signed a cooperation agreement with CIC-IT, a clinical investigation centre for medical technology linked to Lille University Hospital, the French health research institute Inserm and the University of Lille.
Under that agreement, the hospital will share anonymised heart-signal recordings of pregnant women and their babies gathered in recent years. CHD will use them to build and check its predictive indicators, such as warnings of a birth coming too early. Later, the partnership is meant to support clinical testing of the belt, notably at Lille University Hospital itself.
Back in Switzerland, Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) has joined CHD’s scientific committee. The company’s chief medical officer, Nicolas Sananès, is a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the American Hospital of Paris, and he has said that “women should be able to experience pregnancy safely and serenely in the comfort of their own homes whenever possible”.
Today, monitoring a pregnancy usually means a hospital appointment. According to the Biopôle profile, the woman sits or lies still for 20 to 30 minutes while a health professional takes readings with a sensor and gel. CHD’s website says about 15% of pregnancies are classed as high-risk, and that 42% of French maternity wards have closed over the past 25 years.
Certification Planned For 2028
MONI2 is not yet on sale. This month Innosuisse, the Swiss innovation agency, picked CHD for its Core Coaching programme, which will help the company draw up and carry out a regulatory and certification strategy for the belt.
CHD is aiming to launch a health-certified MONI2 in Europe and North America from 2028, for both high-risk and standard pregnancies. Its website already describes the medical version as certified class IIa, a lower-middle risk category under the European Union’s (EU) medical device rules, although the company has not published details of that certification.
Medical devices need the CE mark to be sold in the EU, and a class IIa device can only carry it after a review by a notified body, one of the independent assessors that check products against EU rules. CHD has not yet reached that point, and in June it said it aimed to have working prototypes by the end of this year.
A Team From Digital Health
Vandebrouck, a digital health entrepreneur, was managing director for Europe at Qualcomm Life, the American chipmaker’s former health business. He later ran Chronolife, a French company that makes a connected T-shirt for monitoring patients remotely.
Fernando Romao, CHD’s chief technology officer, was vice-president of engineering at Chronolife, where he led the certification of its T-shirt. Giusy Fiucci, the chief operating officer, also leads quality and regulatory affairs and has more than 20 years in biotech, medical devices and digital health.
Marc Salomon, the chief scientific officer, is a cardiologist and intensive care specialist who co-founded the French health website Figaro Santé. Vassilis Tsatsaris, a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Port-Royal maternity hospital in Paris, advises the company and sits on its scientific committee.
Prototypes And Seed Round Next
CHD has now received Venture Kick’s full CHF 150,000, most of it as convertible loans, and is using the money to take MONI2 from early prototypes towards a version ready for manufacturing. On the clinical side, it has its agreement with Lille University Hospital and a place for Lausanne University Hospital on its scientific committee.
The belt itself remains in development. Its washability, its use of fetal ECG and its predictive indicators are the company’s own descriptions, and CHD has not yet published results from clinical testing.
Next come working prototypes, the close of the seed round’s first tranche and a certification plan drawn up with Innosuisse. If those stay on track, CHD intends to bring MONI2 to market in Europe and North America from 2028.
