BOE Technology Group inked a deal with Israel's Cnoga Medical Ltd. to buy 23.81 percent of the company's shares worth $50 million, reflecting a firm value of $217 million, according to BOE's official website.
The agreement will include joint marketing for Cnoga's products in China and production of new products for the professional health sector. BOE, a Chinese laboratory equipment company that aims to become a leader in the medical field, will receive newly issued shares and not sold ones.
According to BOE, Cnoga's products match its strategic plan. The Or Akiva-based firm has developed non-invasive, pain-free medical devices that measures health parameters through optical diagnosis of the changing color shades of a finger, including pulse, blood pressure, cardiac output, oxygen saturation, hemoglobin, pH, to name a few. Cnoga's products not only boast of how unique they obtain health data but also on how they handle them on the cloud.
Cnoga, founded by Dr. Yosef Segma who previously founded OPlus Technologies that was acquired by Intel, originally aimed to measure blood sugar levels in a non-invasive manner, but it was an extremely difficult parameter to obtain.
Segman's idea started in China when he took note of the differences of skin hues among Chinese people, and differences between Chinese people and Westerners. He thought that they had one similarity and that is the redness in complexion because of blood flow.
It also received a $12.5 million investment from China's GoCapital in 2014. Its products are being distributed in a number of countries including China, Brazil, and Italy, and have received approval in 35 countries.
Cnoga also teamed up with US-based Texas Instruments with the support from the Israel-US Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation. Texas' also spearheaded the first financing round of Cnoga that raised $8 million.