Optimo Medical
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Optimo Medical AG was a Swiss digital health startup, founded in 2015 in Biel/Bienne under CEO Harald Studer, focused on eye surgery. Its CE-certified flagship Optimeyes created a 'digital twin' of the patient's eye inside the computer from accurate eye measurements, then performed a virtual eye surgery to calculate the optimal surgical parameters for each individual eye before the real operation. It won the 2019 ZKB Pioneer Prize (CHF 98,696) and partnered with simulation giant Ansys in 2021.
02 / Optimo Medical FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
The board gave only 'strategic reasons' for discontinuing the business and voluntarily liquidating. Despite a validated, CE-certified product, prizes, and an Ansys partnership, commercial traction arrived late: the first commercial agreement was only signed in 2021, six years after founding, leaving the company dependent on another growth funding round that could not sustain it.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Founded
Optimo Medical AG was founded in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland, to build patient-specific eye surgery planning software.
- CE certification
Optimeyes received the CE Mark as a Class 2b medical device and became commercially available across Europe.
- Prize
Optimo Medical won the ZKB Pioneer Prize with Optimeyes, receiving CHF 98,696 (about $96,845).
- First commercial traction
The company sealed a partnership with Ansys, signed its first commercial agreement, and closed a CHF 1.8 million growth funding round.
- Shutdown
The board decided to discontinue business activities for strategic reasons and voluntarily liquidate the company; the announcement said the assets, IP and software should continue to benefit patients in a new context.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Optimo Medical closed a CHF 1.8 million (about $1.95 million) growth funding round in 2021.
- 02
The board then decided to discontinue business for strategic reasons and voluntarily liquidate the company.
- 03
Per the company's announcement, the built-up assets, IP and software were to be kept alive in a new context so they could continue to benefit patients; no loss figure was disclosed.