Edge Medical Robotics raises $92M for surgical robots

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Edge Medical Robotics

Edge Medical Robotics has closed a $92.6 million Series B round of funding. The Shenzhen, China-based startup will use the funding to accelerate the development and commercialization of its robots for minimally invasive surgery.

The company’s website is quite vague, but it reportedly has three products, including single- and multi-port robots for laparoscopic surgery and a stereoscopic endoscope. The multi-hole system recently entered the clinical trial stage. It features master-slave control, teleoperation and a four-arm structure and 3D endoscopes.

The single-port laparoscopic surgical robot system has started clinical research and is targeting urology, gynecology, and thoracic surgery. Edge Medical Robotics’ linkage technology, based on 20 steel wires, enables the flexible operation of the 7-degree-of-freedom arm. The single-hole robot hopes to reduce surgical trauma and the risk of intra-operative and postoperative infection in clinical applications.

According to China Money Network, Edge Medical Robotics closed its Series A round in 2019 and a Series A+ round in April 2020. Its pre-B round closed in September 2020. Founded in 2017, Edge Medical Robotics’ core team consists of a team of scientists from world-renowned universities such as MIT, Harvard, and Imperial College.

“Laparoscopic robotic surgery has very clear clinical benefits and needs, and has become the most important development direction and trend in the field of surgery. China has the largest number of surgical operations in the world,” said Chen Gang, a partner of LYFE Capital, an investor in Edge Medical Robotics. “In the market, the volume of minimally invasive surgery is still growing rapidly. The number of domestic laparoscopic surgical robots in hospitals and the penetration rate of surgery are extremely low, and there is a huge blank market and unmet clinical needs.

“[Edge Medical Robotics] is one of the few in China. A platform company with complete product development capabilities and simultaneous deployment of single-hole and multi-hole laparoscopic robotic systems. The founding team has a very deep industry accumulation and a strong overall execution ability, and has a lot of synergy with LYFE Capital. We are optimistic in the long run [Edge Medical Robotics] has become a domestic industry leader in the field of laparoscopic surgical robots, promoting the popularization of clinical applications of laparoscopic surgical robots and benefiting patients.”

The global surgical robot market was $5.5 billion in 2018, and it is expected to be $25 billion in 2025. The number of surgeries in China in 2019 exceeded 55 million, while the number of robotic surgeries in 2019 was only about 50,000.