Sword Health confident it will win lawsuit against company seeking 5% of shares. “We don’t want to make any deals”, says CEO

The founder and CEO of Sword Health, who is involved in a lawsuit in the United States against a company claiming 5% of the unicorn’s shares, is convinced that he will win the battle in court. Virgílio Bento told ECO that if the case was not going well, he would have opted to reach an agreement with those who sued them, the Americans from A2 Academy.

“The lawsuit is ongoing. If we wanted to reach a settlement [legal agreement to end the litigation], we would have already done so. As the lawsuit is still ongoing, I can’t say much, but I am completely confident that it will be successful for us”, said the founder of the healthcare technology company, which is worth more than four billion dollars (3.5 billion euros).

Virgílio Bento is (very) confident that Sword Health will not have to hand over 5% of its shares to A2 Academy under a contract signed 11 years ago. “Yes, that is indeed the definition of successful. If it were anything else, we would have already reached an agreement. Therefore, I think the fact that we do not want to make any agreement on this demonstrates the confidence we have in the process”, he reiterated.

The case that pits Sword Health against the American company (formerly known as Aging2.0 Academy) dates back to 2014, when the Porto-based company applied and was chosen to be part of a mentoring and acceleration programme for start-ups with innovative products or services for people over 50. Upon becoming one of the “accelerated” companies, it signed an agreement with the promoters of the initiative that provided for the delivery of 5% of the capital of the Portuguese company. But those shares never arrived.

The parties are now arguing in court in San Francisco whether the claimants still have the right to pursue these actions or whether the deadline for doing so has expired. Sword and Virgílio Bento himself have argued that the deadline for contesting the claim has expired, while A2 Academy argues that this deadline should only start to be counted when it became aware that Sword had not complied with the agreement (the lawsuit only came to court in 2024).

The complainants also accuse Sword of bad faith for not informing them that they had created a company in the US, which, in theory, would be the vehicle through which the shares in question would be allocated. Sword, on the other hand, argues that the records of the creation of this entity in Delaware are public, so A2 Academy was not diligent and was not prevented from accessing this information.

According to court records consulted by ECO, the case has continued in recent months, with several interactions with the court, and a new session scheduled for September.