Axiles Bionics raises growth capital to commercialize Lunaris and develop next generation smart bionics

Axiles Bionics, a Belgian deeptech medtech spin off from Brubotics at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, has announced the first closing of a Series A round with €6 million secured out of an intended €8 million. The financing is led by PE Group and supported by the European Innovation Council Fund, Finance&Invest.brussels, entrepreneurs, private investors and company management. Company executives say the capital will accelerate international rollout of Lunaris, the company’s biomimetic ankle foot prosthesis, and fund development of next generation smart bionic mobility solutions.

Who invested and how the round is structured

Axiles reports a mix of institutional and private investors. The EIC Fund participation is notable because it signals EU backing for deeptech in health and robotics. The company says the round remains open to reach a total of €8 million, with the additional funds intended to complete the Series A.

What Lunaris is and what the company claims it does

Axiles describes Lunaris as a biomimetic prosthetic foot that combines adaptive mechanical design with embedded intelligence to produce more intuitive and natural gait patterns. According to the company, Lunaris is CE marked and FDA cleared and is being adopted in clinical settings in multiple countries. The firm positions Lunaris as part of a broader shift from passive prosthetic components to active, sensorised, software driven devices that aim to restore lifelike movement for lower limb amputees.

Business model: Prosthetics as a Service and commercial strategy

The company is promoting a Prosthetics as a Service model, abbreviated PraaS, that aims to reduce upfront costs for users and integrate device updates, maintenance and user support into a subscription or service agreement. Axiles says PraaS can make advanced bionics more accessible. The new funding is earmarked to accelerate international commercialization of Lunaris and to push work on next generation devices that are in advanced development.

Company background, team and recognition

Axiles Bionics was founded in 2019 as a spin off from Brubotics at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The company has a 15 person multidisciplinary team with more than two thirds of staff employed as engineers. Axiles holds a growing intellectual property portfolio and has been awarded recognitions such as the European Innovation Award and an Innovative Start up Award. The company’s EIC Accelerator project called Solaris began in 2023 and has supported development and scaling activities under Horizon Europe related frameworks.

Timeline and planned milestones

Near term outlook and practical challenges

While the Series A tranche and regulatory clearances are important milestones, several non trivial hurdles remain for Axiles and other companies commercialising active prosthetic devices. Manufacturing scale up for mechanically complex and electronically integrated devices is costly. Certification in one jurisdiction does not automatically ease entry into others because regulatory frameworks and reimbursement systems differ by country. Clinical adoption depends on robust evidence of long term functional benefit, durability and cost effectiveness compared with established solutions. Prosthetics as a Service requires a logistics and clinical network to deliver fitting, maintenance and software updates at scale.

Why this matters for European deeptech and health innovation

Axiles is an example of a European deeptech medical robotics company that has moved from university lab to market facing product with public and private backing. The involvement of the EIC Fund underlines EU policy intent to support technology driven health innovations and to retain strategic capabilities in robotics and medtech. The next phase will test whether public and private capital, academic roots and small engineering teams can overcome operational and market access barriers to deliver products at scale and at price points that broaden accessibility.

Takeaway

The €6 million tranche provides Axiles with capital to expand Lunaris commercially and to continue developing future devices. The company holds regulatory clearances and early awards but still faces the standard gauntlet for medical devices which includes manufacturing scale up, long term clinical validation, and variable reimbursement across markets. Watching how the company uses the remaining Series A funds and how it demonstrates clinical and economic value will determine whether Lunaris and the PraaS model can move from promising innovation to widely available care option.