Altavo GmbH, an AI-based voice reha­bil­i­ta­tion startup founded in 2021, suc­cess­fully closed its Series A financ­ing round on Feb­ru­ary 1, 2024. A Euro­pean con­sor­tium led by OCCIDENT is invest­ing € 5.0 mil­lion in the devel­op­ment of Altavo’s inno­v­a­tive arti­fi­cial voice. 

Altavo’s Arti­fi­cial Voice is a med­ical device designed to restore the nat­ural sound­ing voice of voice­less peo­ple, for exam­ple fol­low­ing laryn­gec­tomy or arti­fi­cial res­pi­ra­tion. The pro­pri­etary “Silent Speech” tech­nol­ogy devel­oped for this pur­pose in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­sity of Dres­den is based on non-inva­sive radar sen­sor tech­nol­ogy and the lat­est neural net­work architectures. 

In addi­tion to the lead investor OCCIDENT from Munich, Novalis Biotech (Ghent, Bel­gium), bm‑t beteili­gungs­man­age­ment thürin­gen and oth­ers are also invest­ing in the cur­rent, sig­nif­i­cantly over­sub­scribed round. In addi­tion, almost all seed investors from the first financ­ing round in Decem­ber 2021 are par­tic­i­pat­ing with a fol­low-up invest­ment, includ­ing TGFS Tech­nolo­giegrün­der­fonds Sach­sen, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF), Sax­o­nia Sys­tems Hold­ing and TUDAG TU Dres­den AG. 

The Series A that has now been con­cluded is intended to finance the fur­ther estab­lish­ment of the com­pany, prod­uct devel­op­ment, the clin­i­cal approval study and inter­na­tion­al­iza­tion. Altavo’s tech­nol­ogy not only promises a break­through in the reha­bil­i­ta­tion of voice­less peo­ple, but also opens up com­pletely new pos­si­bil­i­ties in silent com­mu­ni­ca­tion and human-tech­nol­ogy interaction. 

“We are delighted to have secured a strong Euro­pean investor group for our vision of giv­ing voice­less peo­ple their voice back. With the financ­ing now com­pleted, our clin­i­cal sup­port­ers and our team, we believe we are ide­ally posi­tioned for the tech­ni­cal and clin­i­cal devel­op­ment ahead of us.”
Rudolf von Bünau, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor and Co-Founder, Altavo GmbH

“With our invest­ment in Altavo, we are back­ing an expe­ri­enced team with a con­vinc­ing prod­uct vision. Our aim as a long-term investor is to sup­port the team on its way to the mar­ket and to enable the real­iza­tion of the com­pa­ny’s ambi­tious goals.”
Mirco Müller, Junior Invest­ment Man­ager, OCCIDENT

“We are impressed by Altavo’s highly expe­ri­enced and ded­i­cated team and its inno­v­a­tive, poten­tially dis­rup­tive tech­nol­ogy. We look for­ward to sup­port­ing the com­pany in bring­ing this unique solu­tion to peo­ple with voice loss.”
Jaroslav Belot­serkovsky, Invest­ment Man­ager, Novalis Biotech

“For us, Altavo, with its loca­tions in Dres­den and Jena, is a prime exam­ple of the inno­v­a­tive strength of the Cen­tral Ger­man region and the suc­cess­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion between start-ups and uni­ver­si­ties. We are delighted to invest in a promis­ing med­ical tech­nol­ogy com­pany that ben­e­fits from and com­ple­ments the exist­ing struc­tures at both loca­tions.”
Michael Thiele, Invest­ment Man­ager, bm | t Beteili­gungs­man­age­ment Thürin­gen GmbH and Sören Schus­ter, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor, TGFS Tech­nolo­giegrün­der­fonds Sachsen

About Altavo

Altavo GmbH is a med­ical tech­nol­ogy start-up founded in Feb­ru­ary 2021 and based in Dres­den. Based on non-inva­sive radar sen­sor tech­nol­ogy and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, Altavo devel­ops pros­thet­ics to improve the reha­bil­i­ta­tion of voice­less and vocally impaired patients. At its sites in Dres­den and Jena, Altavo cur­rently employs 15 peo­ple with many years of expe­ri­ence in the fields of AI / data sci­ence, speech tech­nol­ogy, high-fre­quency tech­nol­ogy, med­ical tech­nol­ogy and voice ther­apy. Altavo coop­er­ates with the Chair of Speech Tech­nol­ogy and Cog­ni­tive Sys­tems and the Chair of High Fre­quency Tech­nol­ogy at the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­sity of Dres­den. The col­lab­o­ra­tion is funded by the Fed­eral Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Research (BMBF) in the “Promise-AI” project and by the Säch­sis­che Auf­baubank (SAB) in the “SEMECO-B3: MUSIK” project.
Press con­tact: Rudolf v. Bünau, rudolf.vonbuenau@altavo.eu

About OCCIDENT

OCCIDENT is an inter­na­tional ven­ture cap­i­tal investor with offices in Munich and Zug, is owner-man­aged and invests its own assets. The aim is to make a pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to soci­ety through sus­tain­able and mean­ing­ful invest­ments. OCCIDENT invests in inno­v­a­tive deep-tech start-ups with excel­lent tech­nolo­gies, broad appli­ca­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties and the poten­tial for value-gen­er­at­ing fur­ther devel­op­ment in the fields of life sci­ences, indus­trial tech and dig­i­tal. OCCIDENT acts as a long-term enabler for highly inno­v­a­tive start-ups and vision­ary found­ing teams. 

About Novalis Biotech

Novalis Biotech (Ghent, Bel­gium) is an early-stage ven­ture cap­i­tal investor that invests in tech­nolo­gies that are rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing health­care. The com­pa­ny’s core com­pe­tence lies in the dig­i­tal­iza­tion of life sci­ences, with a focus on bioin­for­mat­ics, genomics and diag­nos­tics. Novalis believes in the appli­ca­tion of inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies to advance the pre­ven­tion, diag­no­sis or treat­ment of disease.
For more infor­ma­tion, please visit www.noval.is

About bm|t

bm|t, based in Erfurt, is a sub­sidiary of Thüringer Auf­baubank and the lead­ing address for invest­ments in Thuringia. The bm|t cur­rently man­ages twelve funds with a total vol­ume of around EUR 445 mil­lion, which invest in inno­v­a­tive com­pa­nies in almost all sec­tors and in all phases of com­pany devel­op­ment — both in the start-up and growth phases or in com­pany suc­ces­sion situations.
Press con­tact: Michael Thiele, michael.thiele@bm‑t.de

About the TGFS Technologiegründerfonds Sachsen

TGFS is an equity investor for knowl­edge-based, tech­nol­ogy-ori­ented start-ups in Sax­ony. It is the lead­ing start-up financier in the Free State of Sax­ony and sup­ports teams with ven­ture cap­i­tal and man­age­ment sup­port in both the seed and start-up phases. An invest­ment by the TGFS gives port­fo­lio com­pa­nies access to other inter­na­tional investors. The fund was first launched in 2008 by the Free State of Sax­ony (with ERDF fund­ing, among other things) and Saxon finan­cial insti­tu­tions and has since sup­ported over 100 start-ups in what is now the third gen­er­a­tion of the fund.
Press con­tact: Sören Schus­ter, Tel. +49 172 2001097, soeren.schuster@cfh.de

About High-Tech Gründerfonds

The seed investor High-Tech Grün­der­fonds (HTGF) finances tech­nol­ogy start-ups with growth poten­tial and has sup­ported more than 700 start-ups since 2005. With the launch of the fourth fund, HTGF has around 1.4 bil­lion euros under man­age­ment. The team of expe­ri­enced invest­ment man­agers and start-up experts sup­ports the young com­pa­nies with know-how, entre­pre­neur­ial spirit and pas­sion. The focus is on high-tech start-ups in the fields of dig­i­tal tech, indus­trial tech, life sci­ences, chem­i­cals and related busi­ness areas. To date, exter­nal investors have invested around 5 bil­lion euros in the HTGF port­fo­lio in more than 2,000 fol­low-up financ­ing rounds. In addi­tion, the fund has already suc­cess­fully sold shares in more than 170 com­pa­nies. Fund investors in the pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship include the Ger­man Fed­eral Min­istry for Eco­nomic Affairs and Cli­mate Pro­tec­tion, KfW Cap­i­tal and 45 com­pa­nies from a wide range of sectors.
Press con­tact: Tobias Jacob, Senior Mar­ket­ing & Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Manager
Phone +49 228 82300 121, t.jacob@htgf.de