Simango, a French start-up developing digital and immersive professional training modules for healthcare establishments, has announced a 2nd round of financing of €3.5 million from its historic investors (Épopée Gestion and Breizh-Up) and a new entrant Vivalto SAS, the investment holding company of the Caille family. This financing will enable the company to continue its expansion in the healthcare sector in France and internationally. Founded in 2018 to meet the training challenges facing paramedical staff, Simango aims to double the number of its customers every year, and expand its training modules to address the medico-social sector and self-employed professionals. An ambitious roadmap for which the startup plans to recruit around 25 people by the end of 2024.
A few key figures:
- An initial fundraising round of €1.3M in 2020 with Épopée Gestion and Breizh- up, the seed capital fund of the Brittany region
- Simango doubles its number of customers and training modules every year. The 30-strong team expects to recruit around 25 new staff by the end of 2024
- By 2022, 90,000 healthcare professionals had completed a Simango training module.
- More than 250 healthcare establishments and some sixty nursing training institutes have benefited from these courses.
- The training catalog contains about forty modules.
- The startup closed 2022 with recurring sales approaching €1 million, and is aiming for €7 million in 2025, with profit margins as early as the end of 2024.
The startup founded by Vincent-Dozhwal Bagot, a doctor and developer of educational video games, and Guillaume Maquinay, a specialist in continuing education, has seen sustained growth since its creation in 2018.
“At the origin of the project, our shared desire to place the learner at the heart of the device, by taking up the mechanics of gaming to facilitate learning for healthcare professionals and above all enable them to be autonomous thanks to short digital modules lasting less than 30 minutes, which they can activate at any time” sums up Vincent-Dozhwal Bagot.
These training courses offer an advantageous business model for establishments, who take out a subscription with regular content updates and engage the learner through innovative teaching methods.
A scalable training tool to meet the needs of healthcare professionals
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Simango transposed its modules onto smartphones, tablets and computers to provide emergency training for healthcare professionals in nasopharyngeal testing, resuscitation and hygiene precautions. In all, over 50,000 people benefit from these freely accessible modules.
Co-constructed with healthcare professionals and regularly updated, Simango’s e-learning courses combine digital simulation and serious games. Building on the success of its numerous scenarios, Simango has continued to create a virtual 3D digital hospital that faithfully reflects real-life professional environments (operating room, patient room, intensive care unit, intensive care unit, etc.). The learner has a digital “twin”, and the startup is also planning to offer “multiplayer” training courses to train teams/departments together.
Simango has also created short, fun and accessible online formats: proper use of medication, transfusion safety, fire safety, radiation protection, acute respiratory distress, multi-resistant bacteria, etc.
Acceleration in new markets
This new round of funding will enable Simango to expand into the healthcare market, and strengthen its catalog of training courses in care safety and patient management, targeting the medical-social, psychiatric, EHPAD and liberal professions sectors.
Épopée Gestion (through its West Web Valley 1 fund) and Breizh-Up, the seed capital co-investment fund of the Brittany Region managed by UI Investissement, are renewing their confidence by participating in this fund-raising. “Simango has succeeded in building a training ecosystem that has evolved to meet the needs of all types of healthcare establishments. They’re writing a wonderful story, and we’re proud to continue supporting them,” enthuses Camille Le Roux-Larsabal, Investment Director at Épopée Gestion.
“Breizh Up is very proud to support the two co-founders and their teams since 2020, who have succeeded in making Simango one of the leading players in digital training for healthcare establishments. What’s more, they have demonstrated their resilience and ability to generate solid, rapid growth, proving the scalability of their model, as well as the strength and quality of their value proposition,” comments Stéphane Lefèvre-Sauli, Investment Director at UI Investissement and in charge of managing the Breizh Up fund.
Vivalto SAS is also delighted to join this entrepreneurial adventure: “At the heart of our two main areas of investment for Family Office, historically healthcare and more recently training, we are very enthusiastic about the idea of accompanying Simango in this new phase of development. The synergies are obviously numerous, and we’ll be actively exploring them together,” concludes Guillaume Caille, Managing Director of Vivalto SAS.
Towards international growth
Simango already works with most of the major healthcare groups: over 250 healthcare establishments and some 60 nursing training institutes have subscribed to its content platform.
This growth is beginning to spread internationally:
- Several Belgian establishments have been attracted by the proposed format, which facilitates access to training for healthcare professionals in a way that is more fun, more flexible and less costly than traditional training.
- A first site is signed in Morocco in early April 2023.
- The startup begins discussions with Swiss and Canadian healthcare establishments, where the skills repository for paramedics and organizational needs are similar.