Portuguese start-up C-Mo Medical has raised €4.8m in a seed round to help develop a wearable that can assess cough symptoms.

The company says it is committed to assessing chronic coughs that affect more than 700 million adults worldwide.

“Cough is a clinically rich symptom that holds valuable information about the patient’s health,” said Diogo Tecelão, co-founder and CEO of the company. “However, the lack of tools to assess and manage chronic cough remains a major unmet medical need. Our mission is to change that.”

C-Mo’s product is unlocking the potential of cough assessment.

“Our unique technology analyses the subtle characteristics of the patient’s cough, translating them into actionable insights that add significant value in key several use-cases,” said Tecelão. “C-Mo has the potential to greatly speed-up diagnosis, optimise treatment courses, improve disease management and support pharmaceutical research.”

The addition of Novalis Biotech as an investor brings the seed investment round to €4.8m. Novalis is joining an investment round led by Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and participation from Portugal Ventures and High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF).

“We are very happy to support C-Mo and join the investor consortium,” said Kjell Mortier, fund manager at Novalis Biotech. “We are impressed by the complementarity and dedication of the C-Mo team that developed this innovative product. Translation of a clinically relevant symptom as cough into an objective, measurable marker is currently missing in drug development or treatment. We are convinced C-Mo’s technology can help to better assess and treat underlying conditions, thereby helping patients to get access to the right treatment.”

Tecelão added: “We are thrilled to welcome Novalis Biotech as a new investor, as their experience in healthcare will bring great added value to our company.”

This extension of the seed investment round should allow the company to explore and unlock the potential of cough assessment by expanding the capabilities and applications of the technology.

C-Mo Medical is a digital health start-up that develops technology for the diagnosis and management of cough-incident medical conditions. The company’s mission is to unravel the clinical potential of cough assessment and solve the major unmet medical problems associated with the management of chronic cough.

Belgium-based Novalis Biotech is an early-stage venture capital investor in healthcare technologies. The company’s core competence lies in digitalisation in the life sciences with a focus on capital-light enabling technologies such as bioinformatics, AI, genomics, personalised medicine, research or manufacturing tools, and diagnostics.