The founders of the Russian startup developing bionic prostheses MaxBionic sold the project to medical equipment supplier Metiz Impex. This was announced by the co-founder of the company, Timur Sayfutdinov.
According to the founder of the project, the valuation was not based on income, but rather that it was higher than the market and the participants did not want to publish the figures. He called the deal itself “strategically important” for both sides.
“For Metiz Impex, this is a way to close the availability of upper limbs and become the new OttoBock for the Russian and CIS markets. And MaxBionic has technologies, but it did not have enough resources to guarantee higher consumption,” said Saifutdinov.
Following the exit, MaxBionic will place greater emphasis on R&D to expand its product range, with production “will be transferred to more experienced colleagues at Metiz Impex.”
In April 2022, MaxBionic transferred the rights to MeHand series products in Russia and the CIS countries to Metiz Impex. Then Sayfutdinov wrote that the Russian division will remain: it will deal with research and maintenance of brushes.
The company planned to fulfill its contractual obligations at the end of last September. MaxBionic emphasized that they do not leave Russia and that the speed of service and repair conditions remain at the same level.
According to Oleg Kivokurtsev, founder of Promobot, the transaction was carried out according to market rules and on favorable terms, mainly for manufacturers of biomechanical prostheses.
“Revenue growing annually (multiples in some years), profit growth, a growing market after the departure of foreign suppliers: all this indicates that the cost of the transaction could be at least x3 EBITDA, and the founders could receive approximately 90 million rubles. ”said RB.RU.
Kivokurtsev also noted that this is a very profitable acquisition for Metiz Impex. Creating your own company from scratch would be much more expensive than acquiring an existing one with an established team, patents, and production.
MaxBionic was founded in 2014 by Russians Maxim Lyashko and Timur Sayfutdinov. In 2017, MaxBionic attracted investments from business angel Alexey Blokhin. RB.RU spoke in detail about the history of the launch of MaxBionic and the motivation of the founders of the startup. In 2021, the startup’s development received the Red Dot Award: Product Design in the Best of the Best category.
In July 2023, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Denis Manturov, stated that currently in Russia there are about 50 companies developing and producing prostheses for the upper and lower extremities. Among them are “Cito”, “Metiz”, “Motorika”, “Tekhbionik” and others.
Author:
Karina Pardaeva
Source: RB
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