Petal Surgical today announced a new financing round to support its incisionless surgery platform as it works toward first-in-human studies.
Blue Pool Capital led the latest financing round for the company, which emerged from stealth with a $10 million Series A last fall. Salience Capital, A&E Investments, TIME Ventures and existing investors, including Actions Capital (formerly K50 Ventures) participated, too.
The company said its Series A brought its total funding to $20 million at the time. Then, in March, it said that total eclipsed $25 million through another financing round. At that time, Intuitive co-founder Dr. Fred Moll — considered the “father of surgical robotics” — also joined the Petal Surgical board. Moll was a participant in the October financing round.
Petal Surgical now continues to gain momentum as it advances its new approach to surgery that uses acoustic liquefaction (a form of histotripsy), AI and robotics.
The company says its precise, reproducible tissue treatment uses Millisecond Pulse Histotripsy while further integrating robotics, imaging and AI-driven controls into its architecture. It plans to use its latest funds to accelerate R&D, expand clinical readiness activities and support its path toward human trials.
“We invest in innovative market leaders who have bigger ambitions than incremental change,” said Christopher Wu, chief investment officer at Blue Pool Capital. “In Petal we see a big opportunity to change and improve healthcare, beginning with incisionless surgery.”
Petal believes its incisionless surgery method could create a new standard of care, making advanced treatments safer, more accessible and less traumatic for patients worldwide. It aims to eliminate cutting, pain, trauma and other typical surgical risks. The company says the body heals itself naturally with no cuts, burns or toxicity.
Histotripsy is a method that uses focused ultrasound waves to destroy tumors and other abnormal tissue. A noteworthy company using the method right now is HistoSonics, which develops a histotripsy platform for treating a range of tumors and other indications.
Petal’s platform works with the body’s natural abilities to heal by creating vapor-filled cavities one at a time. This allows for clear and connected treatment regions with more opportunities to break down tougher tissues.
Image-guided surgery engineer, Prash Chopra, founded the company, along with neurosurgeon Dr. Bowen Jiang, robotic-assisted spine surgery pioneer Dr. Nicholas Theodore, and Rony Abovitz, a founder of Mako Surgical. Mako, a leading orthopedic surgical robot platform, now belongs to Stryker.
“Petal is a unique mission that is solving hard problems in biophysics using physical AI,” said Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel and Petal Surgical investor. “We are excited about its potential to completely redefine our expectations of surgical outcomes.”
Editor’s Note: This story was republished from sister website MassDevice.
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