Doc Robo (ROBO医疗), a surgical robot startup based in Shenzhen, has announced a Series A funding round worth tens of millions of yuan, PEDaily, a VC-focused media outlet, reported today.
The round was led by Tailong Capital, with the proceeds going to the clinical trial and R&D of digestive endoscopic surgical robots.
Doc Robo has been committed to developing flexible robots to assist with gastrointestinal endoscopic operations. It is alsoone of the first surgical robot startups to commercialize its know-how in the segment. The company claims to be in the same league as leading American counterparts.
To date, Robo’s self-developed endoscopic robotic system has been adopted in more than 100 clinical trials at Qilu Hospital of Shandong University and Changhai Hospital.
According to the startup, it uses micro continuum flexible robotic arms that are 3mm across, feature six degrees of freedom and achieve precise master-slave control.
With the robotic arm capable of moving down a patient’s digestive tract on its own and replacing part of the functions of traditional gastroscope, this design makes instrument manipulation more intuitive, shorten the duration of surgeries, reduce risks of complications and expand the scope of operations.
Founded in 2015, Doc Robo partnered with Qilu Hospital to develop a digestive endoscopic surgical robot in 2017, and has looked to apply the results of their technological research in surgeries on digestive tracts under the auspices of the country’s Ministry of Technology.
