April 12, 2018 – French medical technology company CorWave announced it has been awarded almost $3.5 million in financing for its R&D program NovaPulse in the Silver Economy category. This is part of phase 2 of France’s Concours Mondial d'Innovation or Worldwide Innovation Challenge.
With this new financing, CorWave will be able to step up the pace of development of NovaPulse, a new mini-invasive cardiac support pump, and thereby improve the care of older patients suffering from chronic heart failure, one of the leading causes of death worldwide.
The aim of the Worldwide Innovation Challenge is to foster talent and pave the way for the emergence of France’s future economic champions. The challenge is financed by the Invest for the Future Program (PIA) and managed by Bpifrance.
CorWave CEO Louis de Lillers explained the NovaPulse program paves the way for less invasive implantation of cardiac support devices, particularly for older patients who are often too weak for open heart surgery. The NovaPulse program is focused on the development of CorWave Nemo, a partial support device, complementary to CorWave Neptune, the company’s full support left ventricular assist device (LVAD).
CorWave was already a winner in phase 1 of the Worldwide Innovation Challenge in July 2016. This gave CorWave the resources to identify and establish the technological proof-of-concept required to provide a new type of partial support, small enough to fit into an envelope the size of an implantable defibrillator. It has since raised €15.5 million in funding from Novo Seeds, Ysio Capital and from its historic investors, Sofinnova Partners, Bpifrance and Seventure, which had already invested €3.3 million in the company in 2013.
In 2017, almost 10,000 cardiac support devices were implanted worldwide, a small number in relation to the number of people suffering from heart failure. A high level of complications is holding this therapy back: Two years after implantation, four patients out of five are affected by at least one severe complication caused by the pump. The pumps currently on the market function in a very different way to the human heart. They cause a number of physiological imbalances, leaving the door open to complications.
CorWave’s technology’s undulating wave pumps reproduce the operation of the human heart and should therefore reduce complications. This progress would enable wider adoption of implantable cardiac support devices, which already represent a market of almost $1 billion in annual sales.
For more information: www.corwave.fr
October 28, 2025 
