RDS is a Strasbourg-based health tech scale-up on a mission to redefine post-operative care. While surgical innovation has moved at a rapid pace, the way patients are monitored after surgery has remained largely unchanged for decades, and RDS is changing this by replacing bulky bedside monitors with a discreet, wearable solution that brings hospital-grade data to any setting.
We spoke with Guillaume Calmon, Head of Business Development & Marketing at RDS, to learn more about how their MultiSense® technology is tackling the last mile of surgical recovery, the journey of the transatlantic team behind it, the company's future growth, and, of course, their experience as members of the EIC Scaling Club’s Cardiovascular Therapies market group.
A band-aid for better recovery
For over half a century, the paradigm of patient monitoring has relied on large, immobile machines that tether patients to hospital beds. RDS has disrupted this cycle with MultiSense®, a patented, non-invasive patch the size of a large band-aid that delivers the same high-precision data as intra-hospital devices.
“What RDS does, and does extremely well, is to make sure that the data we capture and display is the same quality as the data you would measure inside a hospital,” explains Guillaume.
By providing a continuous stream of clinical-grade data, MultiSense® allows patients to be discharged earlier and safer, reducing the risk of hospital-acquired infections and improving recovery comfort at home, “because everything's better at home – you can eat better, you can walk and exercise, and your mental health is better compared to being in a hospital”.
The patch uses 5 sensors to capture key vital signs simultaneously, including heart rate and ECG (Electrocardiogram), respiratory rate, oxygen saturation (SpO2), skin temperature, activity and posture. By combining these data points, the system uses motion tracking to filter out signal noise, ensuring that doctors only see data of the highest clinical quality.
RDS provides not just a patch, but a complete solution, which includes a mobile phone and set-up assistance. “We provide a dedicated mobile phone with the kit, which features a step-by-step tutorial so when a healthcare professional opens the kit, they can follow the steps, and apply the patch. Then the phone goes home with the patient and is the interface between the patient, us, and the hospital.”
A bridge between Silicon Valley and Strasbourg
The RDS story began 10 years ago in Silicon Valley with the company’s founder Sam Eletr – who was famously involved in decoding the human genome – and the ambition to turn a 12kg monitoring device into a 30 gram patch. The vision took a decisive turn when the US team met Professor Jacques Marescaux, the founder of IRCAD and a pioneer of robotic telesurgery, having been the first surgeon to operate remotely between France and New York.
Recognising that the patch was the perfect tool for recovery after surgery, the company relocated its headquarters to Strasbourg to tap into the region’s world-class life sciences ecosystem.
Today, the company is led by CEO and Co-Founder Elie Lobel and is powered by a diverse team of 30 professionals with a rich mix of backgrounds. Guillaume elaborates:
“We have people, like myself, with 25 years of experience in healthcare alongside junior talent who have grown with the company from their studies. We generally try to keep a diverse team – we have something like 35% women in the team and also talents from different countries.”
Overcoming benchmarks and scaling manufacturing
The journey hasn't been without its hurdles. One of the primary challenges was transforming a complex engineering prototype into a device that could be manufactured at scale. After years of industrialisation, RDS now increasingly manages its own manufacturing in France and is moving toward owning its entire logistical chain and unlocking the ability to produce 100,000 patches per year by 2029.
Another hurdle is demonstrating the return on investment to traditional hospitals. “Hospitals often see a new expense without clearly seeing the matched revenue,” Guillaume explains. To address this, RDS is conducting a 400-patient clinical trial to prove that the patch not only improves patient outcomes but also significantly reduces the average length of hospital stay – saving hospitals up to €1,200 per night.
The success of their approach is evident: RDS has around 15 customers, the majority in France, but some in Belgium and in Germany, and they recently closed a €14 million Series A funding round in September 2025, bringing the scale-up’s total funding to €28 million. The team is now eyeing FDA approval, as well as looking forward to wrapping up multiple clinical studies they’re engaged in, all while expanding their team:
“I'm calling out for candidates to apply. We have plenty of positions open right now. Not all of them are displayed, so spontaneous applications are welcome. Strasbourg is right in the center of Europe and it's a vibrant city with a great history, with a university, as well as a very good ecosystem for startups and larger companies in a very industrial part of France.”
The EIC Scaling Club experience
Membership of the EIC Scaling Club has proven invaluable for the scale-up. RDS has gained the visibility needed to scale its business-to-business and investor relationships, as well as benefited from other support elements:
“Being recognised by the EIC Scaling Club was a great motivation for the team. It gives us visibility on the radar of major European actors and provides invaluable support through coaching and interactions with experts across different countries,” concludes Guillaume.
About the EIC Scaling Club
The EIC Scaling Club is a curated community where 120 European deep tech scale-ups with the potential to build world-class businesses and solve major global challenges come together with investors, corporate innovators and other industry stakeholders to spur growth.
The top 120 European deep tech companies have been carefully selected from a pool of high-growth scale-ups that have benefitted from EIC financial schemes, other European and national innovation programmes, and beyond.
The EIC Scaling Club is an EIC-funded initiative run in partnership by Tech Tour, Bpifrance (EuroQuity), Hello Tomorrow, Tech.eu (Webrazzi), EurA and IESE Business School.
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