Italian company Medical Microinstruments (MMI) has secured €20m in series A funding to speed up the development of its robotic platform for microsurgery.
The investors syndicate who provided the funding include Andera Partners, Panakes Partners and Fountain Healthcare returning Seed investor Sambatech, and two industry veterans Gus Castello, former Senior Vice President of Product Operations for Intuitive Surgical and AxoGen founder John Engels.
MMI CEO Giuseppe Prisco said: "We are thrilled to have an outstanding group of investors and successful medtech experts supporting the next phase of development of the company and to address together a market opportunity that exceeds $2.5bn annually."
The round aims at completing product and clinical development, obtaining the CE mark and launching in European markets.
MMI said while robotics has penetrated laparoscopic surgery and more recently into orthopedic surgery, microsurgery used in reconstructive, lymphatic and eye surgeries and others have remained mostly unserved by robotics till date.
Microsurgery has only seen incremental advances in optics and instrumentation. As surgical practice is mostly bound to what is manually achievable when working under 5x to 40x optical scaling.
MMI claims that it is pursuing a disruptive advance in this surgical space by coupling the dexterity of robotically controlled wrist articulation with 5x to 40x motion scaling to match optical magnification.
Andera Partners partner Olivier Litzka said: "Surgical robotics is a major trend that has yet to penetrate a number of surgical specialties beyond laparoscopy.
"MMI is poised to provide the first robotic product for open surgery with wristed microinstruments. We are excited to collaborate with MMI as they work to build a great company in an exciting category."
Panakes Partners partner Alessio Beverina stated that MMI exemplifies the best that Italy has to offer. Its breakthrough technology can help surgeons who perform complex microsurgery with highly precise dexterity and motion, and tremor-free control.
As part of the financing, Andera Partners' Olivier Litzka, Panakes' Alessio Beverina, Fountain's Justin Lynch along with industry experts Gus Castello, John Engels and, Esaote former CEO and founder Fabrizio Landi will join the board of MMI together with Carlo Alberto Marcoaldi, Giuseppe M. Prisco and Hannah Teichmann, who co-founded MMI with Massimiliano Simi.
Image: World's Smallest Robotic Wrist. Photo: Courtesy of PRNewsfoto/MMI SPA.