Xeltis has raised €20.5m ($23.3m), setting the vascular graft specialist up with proceeds to further its preparation for US market commercialisation and help solidify a European rollout.
The Netherlands-headquartered company’s latest financing tranche was led by new investor Horizon 3 Healthcare, with participation from existing investors including the European Innovation Council (EIC), Invest-NL, and EQT Life Sciences. It follows Xeltis’ completion of a €47.5m fundraise in December 2025.
Xeltis’s lead product is aXess, a bioabsorbable graft for haemodialysis. Injected under the skin, promoting the growth of a patient’s own tissue to form a living, permanent blood vessel, the graft secured a European CE mark in April 2026.
With the fresh funds in hand, Xeltis is now setting a course for aXess’s US commercialisation. The company announced in July that its pivotal trial (NCT06494631) to support the vascular graft’s US market clearance had enrolled over 50% of patients of a planned 140-patient total.
The study is evaluating patients aged 18 and above who have received an end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) diagnosis and who intend to undergo haemodialysis yet are considered unsuitable candidates for the gold standard blood access protocol for long-term haemodialysis of fistula creation.
Beyond its aXcess pivotal trial, Xeltis has several early-stage clinical programmes in progress that the latest funds will also support, including a feasibility study for its investigational bio-restorative vascular conduit, XPAD (NCT07716020), in patients with peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD).
Xeltis CEO, Eliane Schutte, commented: “This fundraising not only enables us to bring our groundbreaking vascular access technology to more European patients, as we continue our successful commercial rollout, but also enables us to advance our aXess pivotal trial in the US, prepare for US market launch and continue our other exciting clinical programmes, XABG and XPAD.”
Research indicates that over 500,000 people in the US are living with ESKD. Despite this, research to better prevent, treat, and cure kidney diseases is just $19 per patient annually, lagging far behind other chronic conditions such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
Experts say this constrained financing in the kidney care space reflects a need for innovation in a market that investors do not always see the potential upside in. Some observers assert that further groundwork is needed to realise benefit, such as streamlining dialysis clinic workflows and rendering vascular access more reproducible and convenient for ESKD patients.
