Horizon Surgical Systems, a startup developing automated, artificial intelligence-powered robotic tools for eye surgery, has raised $30 million in venture capital funding to help it tackle a first-in-human study of its technology.
The Malibu, California-based company’s series A round was led by ExSight Ventures and included backing from Main Street Advisors and the UC Investments arm of the University of California system.
Horizon Surgical’s image-guided Polaris system aims to help surgeons perform cataract removal procedures and the replacement with artificial lenses—already one of the most frequent operations worldwide, and one that the company expects to double in number over the coming decades amid an aging population.
“Robotic cataract surgery makes a lot of sense. The Horizon system will, I believe, make surgeons more consistent and faster, with far less complications,” said ExSight Ventures founder and general partner, Firas Rahhal, who joined the company’s board of directors alongside William Link, co-founder of Flying L Partners and Versant Ventures.
The startup, which spun out from UCLA in 2021, aims to reduce the natural tremors that come with human hands while incorporating AI computer vision to aid surgeons in decision-making and help automate and standardize the repetitive steps needed for the procedure—including delivering incisions, fragmenting and extracting cataracts, and injecting and aligning intraocular lenses. It also aims to help providers complete more surgeries per day with less staff.
“Both our team and investors recognize that our Polaris system is poised to capitalize on the next era in surgical robotics, enhancing the surgeon's natural capabilities with state-of-the-art augmented visualization and precision robotic control,” Horizon Surgical’s founder and CEO, Jean-Pierre Hubschman, said in a statement.
“As artificial intelligence continues to advance surgical robotics, I believe it will unlock unprecedented surgical assistance capabilities within the Polaris platform, driving unmatched accuracy, efficiency, and outcomes in the operating room,” added Hubschman, who also serves as a professor at the UCLA Jules Stein Eye Institute and helps lead its robotic eye surgery lab.