Citus: The Venture Leader Medtech advancing non-invasive assessment of skin

03.10.2024 10:30, Rita Longobardi

Meet David Sachs, Co-Founder of Citus. The Medtech startup enables doctors and skin care researchers to measure skin health through mechanical characterization. In November, David and the other nine Swiss National Medtech Team members will fly to Boston on a business development and investor roadshow.

Name: David Sachs
Location: Zürich
Nationality: German
Graduated from: ETH Zürich
Job title: Co-Founder & CTO
Number of employees: 4
Money raised: CHF 375k equity financing, CHF 585k non-dilutive funding
First touchpoint with Venturelab: Venture Kick in 2021

 
Can you tell us who your product or solution helps, and how?
Skin mechanics provides important knowledge about our health and the stages of diseases. Especially staging of fibrosis, i.e. skin stiffening, is of great clinical interest. Until now, however, this knowledge remains hidden from doctors. With the Nimble, Citus closes this gap. The Nimble measures the progression of fibrosis noninvasively, and thus allows for a fast and accurate staging and monitoring of diseases.

What market are you addressing and what is the potential of your startup in that market?
Skin stiffening occurs in many indications. Scars are the most prominent to the public. Citus will enter the medical market by addressing lymphedema. Lymphedema is an accumulation of protein-rich fluid under the skin resulting in swelling and fibrosis. Worldwide 250 M people suffer from it. For lymphedema, we see a market potential of CHF 340 M in Europe and over 3 billion worldwide.

How and where did you come up with the idea for your startup?
The device was developed and tested in clinical trials during the PhD of my co-founder Dr. Bettina Thumm. It was also during this time that we decided to pursue a start-up to make the technology available to all patients worldwide.
 
What do you expect from the Venture Leaders Medtech roadshow, and how will it help you achieve your vision?
The Venture Leaders Medtech roadshow marks the start of our American expansion. On the east coast, Boston and New York are two big hubs with world-class research institutions, medical centers as well as sources of venture capital. The roadshow thus offers a unique opportunity to dive into this ecosystem and form the first important business collaborations.

What are your team’s key achievements to date?
Every day I’m amazed at the progress we are making as a team. The main achievement to date however is our first paying customers, which we acquired earlier this year. With this we not only demonstrated that our innovation is needed on the market but also that we can deliver a high-class product on time.

What is the most challenging and rewarding aspect of being a founder?
The most challenging and rewarding aspect of being a founder is making decisions. Often decisions have to be made with limited information and under high time pressure, which makes it very challenging. However, this journey is also the result of many right decisions, giving us confidence every day to continue.

What is the most important lesson you have learned as a founder?
Fail fast – learn fast. It is better to move fast and to fail sometimes than to overthink and not move at all.

What is your favourite productivity hack/tool and why?
My productivity hack is to keep my mornings free of meetings. As a morning person, I am most productive in the morning. Thus keeping this time for myself helps me to finish the important tasks of the day first.

What was your dream job when you were a child?
When I was a child my dream job was to become a professional athlete. Despite not having achieved this, my experience from back then still today helps me to plan my daily routine and to keep my focus on the important goals.