Medical robotics pioneer Prof. Moshe Shoham of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology just raised $10 million in seed money for a sight-saving startup.
ForSight Robotics, based in Haifa, is developing a robotic surgical platform that will “enable the transformation of ophthalmic surgery from art to science,” said cofounder Dr. Joseph Nathan.
Nathan said many leading causes of blindness can be prevented with timely intervention. However, ophthalmic microsurgery requires many years to master. In addition, trained ophthalmic surgeons are in short supply worldwide.
Foresight Robotics will automate the complex steps from planning stages to real-time operational guidance. The goal is to provide the eye surgeon with unprecedented dexterity and maneuverability via microsurgical robotics, computer visualization and machine learning.
The seed funding round, led by Eclipse Ventures and joined by Mithril Capital, is a vote of confidence in the team: Shoham, who sold spinal surgery company Mazor Robotics to Medtronic for $1.64 billion in 2018; Nathan, previously director of healthcare commercialization and of a medical startup incubator at the Technion; and CEO Daniel Glozman, who headed R&D at Medtronic Ventor Technologies, Magenta Medical, Diagnostic Robotics and Guide-X.
“Our partnership with ForSight is a continuation of our effort to invest in the most advanced robotics companies and support world-class talent with the necessary experience to build real-world solutions for highly valuable applications and industries,” said Seth Winterroth, partner at Eclipse Ventures. “This company meets all those criteria and one more: Its success will help millions of people around the world see and live better.”
(Edited by Fern Siegel and David Martosko)
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