Based in Trieste, Italy, Recornea is a clinical-stage medical technology company developing therapeutic solutions for treating eye diseases. Founded in 2020, in 2022 the company completed an incubation path in I3P; today, Recornea is pioneering the development of innovative medical devices with the first-ever nitinol corneal implant, the GROSSOⓇ Reshaper, engineered to restore vision in patients with mild to severe keratoconus.
In July 2025, Recornea received an investment of €450,000 and closed an oversubscribed seed round of €1.2 million, led by the new investor ENEA Tech e Biomedical, a private foundation supervised by the Italian Ministry of Business and Made in Italy, together with the new investors B Heroes, Caique Holding, DN Lemans and Scientifica, along with the existing investor Health Wildcatters, from USA, with their follow-on investment. The new funding round would not have been successful, noted Recornea, without the support of its early investors, namely Entrepreneurs First and G-Factor, incubator-accelerator of Fondazione Golinelli.
The innovative medtech project
The GROSSOⓇ Reshaper has a groundbreaking pre-defined physiological curvature that remodels the cornea with predictable visual outcomes where current treatments fall short. The core nitinol technology behind the GROSSOⓇ Reshaper is a platform technology that can be translated to solutions to treat different eye diseases: as part of the company’s pipeline, Recornea is exploring the development of a new nitinol-based filtering device for treating glaucoma.
Recornea has successfully completed the preclinical phase by conducting the biocompatibility testing and the 6-month rabbit study that showed that the GROSSOⓇ Reshaper is well tolerated in the eye. The First-in-Human clinical trial (FIH) on 12 patients is currently underway at the Instituto de Microcirugía Ocular (IMO) in Barcelona, Spain, while a second site of the FIH at Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS in Rome, Italy is in the process of being set up.
The first patient implanted with the GROSSOⓇ Reshaper demonstrated excellent safety results and initial promising efficacy data; predictability and stability are under investigation and will be evaluated upon completion of the recruitment and data analysis.
The investment in Recornea’s technology
The €1.2 million investment will be used to complete the ongoing FIH clinical trial on 12 patents currently being conducted in Barcelona and about to start in Rome. Recornea will open the next fundraising for €15 million Series A round in the fourth quarter of 2025.
The Series A will allow the company to move forward bringing the GROSSOⓇ Reshaper for keratoconus on the market in Europe after a multicentric pivotal clinical trial on at least 100 patients planned to start in 2027, as well as bringing the second product in pipeline, the filtering device for glaucoma, to reach the clinical phase.
“At Recornea, we are committed to preventing blindness through innovation. Our mission is to improve the daily lives of patients worldwide by developing minimally invasive ophthalmic solutions that restore vision and well-being. The recently completed round will help us finalize the First Human Clinical trials through collaborations with leading hospitals in Europe, namely Institute of Micro Ocular Surgery (IMO) in Barcelona and the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS in Rome,” said Emiliano Lepore, CEO of Recornea, furthermore adding: “Leveraging on the core nitinol technology as a platform technology, we shall pioneer a frontier of new therapeutic solutions for eye diseases”.
