Petal Surgical adds more funding for incisionless surgical robot
What's the deal? Petal SurgicalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has closed another financing round as it pushes toward first-in-human trials for its incisionless surgery platform. Blue Pool CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → led the round, with Salience CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, A&E InvestmentsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, TIME VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and existing investor Actions Capital also participating.
The company emerged from stealth last autumn with a $10M Series A that brought total funding to $20M. By March, that figure eclipsed $25M. The latest round pushes it higher still, though Petal did not disclose the exact new total.
Why now? Petal is building momentum around a technology called histotripsy — focused ultrasound waves that destroy tumours and abnormal tissue without any incision. Its specific approach, Millisecond Pulse Histotripsy, integrates robotics, imaging, and AI-driven controls to treat tissue precisely and reproducibly.
The founding team carries serious surgical-robotics pedigree. IntuitiveDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → co-founder Dr. Fred Moll — widely called the "father of surgical robotics" — joined Petal's board in March. The company was founded by image-guided surgery engineer Prash Chopra, neurosurgeon Dr. Bowen Jiang, robotic-assisted spine surgery pioneer Dr. Nicholas Theodore, and Rony Abovitz, a founder of Mako SurgicalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → (now part of Stryker).
"In Petal we see a big opportunity to change and improve healthcare, beginning with incisionless surgery," said Christopher Wu, chief investment officer at Blue Pool Capital.
What could go wrong? Histotripsy is still early-stage in clinical adoption. Petal has yet to begin human trials, and the path from preclinical work to regulatory clearance is long and uncertain. HistoSonics is a noteworthy competitor already developing a histotripsy platform for treating various tumours.
Persuading surgeons and health systems to adopt a fundamentally different approach — one that replaces incisions entirely — will also require robust clinical evidence.
The signal: Blue Pool Capital, the investment fund that manages wealth for Alibaba co-founders, backing an early-stage surgical robotics company underscores how non-traditional healthcare investors are placing big bets on platforms that promise to leapfrog conventional surgical approaches rather than refine them. With Dealroom classifying Petal as a "breakout" company despite it being pre-clinical, the combination of heavyweight founders from Intuitive and Mako Surgical with crossover capital suggests the market sees incisionless surgery not as a niche research project but as a category poised to scale.
Read more: therobotreport.com
