AIKON Health raises €1.2 million for wearable heart failure monitor

Eindhoven-based medtech company AIKON Health raised €1.2 million in seed financing in June 2025. The funds are earmarked for product development and early clinical validation of a wearable skin patch designed to monitor heart failure patients at home.

AIKON Health was founded in 2023 as a spin-off from TNO Holst Centre, where the technology behind the patch was developed over a period of ten years. The round was led by the TTT Medtech fund, with participation from the Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (BOM), Brabant Startup Fonds, a Rabo Innovatielening and TNO Ventures. The company is based at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven and is targeting the European and American markets, with FDA approval cited as an explicit goal.

Heart failure affects more than 15 million people in Europe. In the Netherlands, approximately 30,000 hospital admissions due to heart failure occur each year, accounting for more than €800 million in healthcare costs that could potentially be avoided through earlier intervention, according to figures published by AIKON.

A patch with dry electrodes and hybrid printed electronics

The core of AIKON's product is a skin patch that performs continuous, non-invasive measurements on the patient at home. The patch uses dry electrodes and hybrid printed electronics on a biocompatible material, technology derived directly from TNO Holst Centre.

The device simultaneously records a range of physiological parameters: haemodynamic function, fluid status, ECG, respiratory rate, heart rate, skin temperature, physical activity and posture. The patch can collect data continuously for up to fourteen days. The data is made available to treating cardiologists, enabling them to remotely monitor the progression of the condition. AIKON therefore argues that early signs of deterioration can be detected sooner than with periodic hospital check-ups.

Heart failure is a chronic condition in which fluid retention is a common cause of acute deterioration. Traditionally, patients are only seen once symptoms have already developed; continuous home monitoring offers the opportunity for earlier intervention. AIKON is targeting the patch at precisely that gap between outpatient appointments.

Founders and background

AIKON Health was founded by Thiru Kanagasabapathi (CEO), Sofia Hidalgo (Head of Clinical Sciences) and Siam Gnana (CTO). The three built on research conducted at TNO Holst Centre, where Kanagasabapathi previously worked. The transition from research institution to independent company took place in 2023.

With the seed financing, the company aims to move towards early clinical validation, a requirement before the product can be deployed with patients. Clinical validation in the medtech sector includes studies in which the accuracy and safety of measurements are assessed against existing clinical standards. AIKON states it is aiming to reduce the number of hospital admissions by at least 25 percent, although this is an internally set target that still needs to be substantiated by clinical evidence.

Regional investors and the TTT Medtech fund

The investment was led by the TTT Medtech fund, a fund focused specifically on early-stage medtech companies. BOM and Brabant Startup Fonds are regional investors targeting technology companies in Noord-Brabant. TNO Ventures, TNO's investment vehicle, is also participating, underscoring the close relationship between AIKON and its parent organisation. The Rabo Innovatielening complements the round with debt financing.

The combination of regional funds, a sector-specific medtech fund and the TNO network is typical of how early spin-offs from Dutch knowledge institutions often raise their first capital. AIKON thereby brings together publicly affiliated parties with a specialised market player.

For the broader Dutch and European medtech landscape, AIKON's round illustrates that financing is available for early clinical-stage companies building on ten years of knowledge development. At the same time, the company is still at the beginning of a long journey: clinical validation, CE marking and potential FDA approval typically take years and considerably more capital than the current round. Investors and other founders in the region will be watching the progress of the clinical studies closely as an indication of whether this approach can work at scale.