Chinese medtech firm Ronovo Surgical has raised an undisclosed amount in a Series A funding round.

The financing round was led by Matrix Partners China and US-based Vivo Capital, which manages about $5.8 billion worth of assets.

WHAT IT DOES

Staffed by surgeons, medtech veterans and robotics experts, the two-year-old company aims to “democratise” digital and minimally invasive surgery (MIS) in the “vastly underserved” Chinese surgical market.

WHY IT MATTERS

The proceeds from the investing round will be used to quickly develop technologies, as well as "pursue multiple global strategic partnerships in support of accelerated path to commercialisation", said Ronovo CEO and founder Dr. John Ma in a statement.

MARKET SNAPSHOT

"Robotics-driven digital surgery is clearly a rising trend for MIS, with great market potential and tremendous room for innovation both globally and in China," said Dr. Yi Shi, founding managing partner of biomedical venture capital firm Lilly Asia Ventures, which has also seeded investments in Ronovo.

It was previously projected that the global surgical robots market will rise to $12.6 billion in value by 2025 from $4.5 billion in 2016.

Last year, Chinese medical robots maker Jianjia Robots or Jointech raised over 100 million yuan (around $14.6 million) in a Series B round led by Hillhouse Capital, pharmaceutical giant Fosun Pharma and Baidu Ventures of internet firm Baidu. The cash was used to fund the clinical trial of its joint replacement surgery robot called Arthrobot.

Additionally, French robotic imaging company eCential Robotics secured nearly €100 million (around $121 million) in funding to support its growth, while UK-based medtech firm Freehand held a crowdfunding round where it raised £1 million (close to $140 million).

ON THE RECORD

"With world-class talent from top medtech MNCs and industry leaders in robotics, our team is uniquely qualified to take on the mission of enabling China’s hospitals with digital surgery solutions to optimise patient clinical outcome and reduce health economic burden," said Ronovo CTO and co-founder Dr. Ying Mao.