Andromeda Surgical: Autonomous surgical robots 🦾🏥
Autonomous robots that use AI to elevate every surgeon to world expert level and deliver consistently great patient outcomes
tl;dr: We’re Andromeda Surgical and we’re building autonomous surgical robots. We’re a team of two 3x founders and 2x YC founders from medtech and autonomous vehicles. Our AI-assisted robots will empower every surgeon to operate at world expert level for every procedure, every time, with minimal training. We’re starting with a proven urologic procedure that can treat over half a million patients per year in the US alone.
About Us
Hi everyone, we’re Nick and Kartik, the co-founders of Andromeda Surgical. Nick has founded medtech companies collectively worth over $1 billion whose products are used in over 1,000 medical facilities. Kartik led the team that built and launched the world’s first autonomous truck to operate driverless on US highways. We were both YC alums before this batch, Nick with Zenflow (W15) and Kartik with Starsky Robotics (S16). We met through YC Co-Founder Matching and realized we could apply the same principles underlying self-driving vehicles to fundamentally change how surgery is performed.
Problem
Human mental and physical capabilities limit surgical outcomes. Existing surgical robotics companies focus almost exclusively on solving the physical challenges, making surgical movements more ergonomic and precise. These improvements alone have revolutionized surgery and spawned a large and fast-growing industry, led by Intuitive Surgical ($108 billion market cap). Surgeons love to use these products and patients eagerly sign up for robotic procedures.
Despite the proliferation of robotics in surgery, the clinical need to reduce complication rates remains largely unmet. Almost one third of patients undergoing surgery experience complications, and 8% experience major complications [1]. Many surgeons have told us they blame themselves for sub-optimal outcomes, and this adds significant stress to their lives. As AI becomes more powerful, it offers tremendous potential to improve surgical decision making and reduce complication rates.
Our Solution
Andromeda uses AI to augment surgeons’ mental and cognitive faculties. We’re starting with a common prostate procedure that can treat over half a million patients per year and has better outcomes than all alternatives. Its steep learning curve limits the number of urologists who can perform it. The procedure is algorithmically simple, but it’s hard for urologists to know exactly where they are and what they’re seeing, resulting in mistakes and delays. We’ve designed a GPS-like location system to help surgeons accurately orient themselves and perform the best possible action in every moment.
After launching, we’ll expand into other urologic procedures and then beyond. Whereas most surgical robots focus on multi-port laparoscopic procedures, we’re starting with natural orifice procedures that tend to be less mechanically complex. We’re a hardware-lite company and built our simple yet versatile robot in just three months. The main value we’ll provide is in our software. Our long-term vision is to enhance all surgeons’ abilities with AI, empowering them to perform a broad range of procedures at expert level and deliver consistently optimal outcomes to patients.
Asks
·     We’re hiring robotics and HRI/industrial design engineers
·     We’re looking to meet urologists who can partner with us on data collection and future clinical trials
Please reach out at info@andromedasurgical.com if you’re interested to help us build the future of surgery.