New Money is our snapshot of Chicago-area funding announcements.
Deal: $1 million seed round
Investors: CJM Ventures, M25 Group, SymphonyAlpha Ventures, The University of Chicago Innovation Fund, Wasson Enterprise, as well as unnamed healthcare and technology angel investors.
What they do: ExplORer Surgical is a surgery workflow tool that aims to create better communication in the operating room and reduce hospital waste. Their tablet-based software provides a "surgical playbook" that covers the materials needed for a surgery, as well as step-by-step workflow throughout a procedure, allowing surgeons and assisting staff to be on the same page. This allows hospitals to reduce waste--nurses and assisting staff are less likely to open incorrect materials, for example--and perform surgeries more efficiently. They cover over 100 surgical procedures and allow surgeons to customize the workflow depending on their preferences in the OR.
Other details: ExplORer Surgical previously raised over $350,000 including a $225,000 grant from the National Science Foundation and $50,000 at UChicago's New Venture Challenge last year. The company was co-founded by CEO Jennifer Fried, a Northwestern and UChicago Booth graduate, and intraoperative efficiency researcher and ENT surgeon Dr. Alex Langerman (Chief Medical Officer), as well as UChicago General Surgery resident Dr. Marko Rojnica.
The raise allowed ExplORer Surgical to hire a CTO, Eugene Fine, who previously worked as a tech executive, and Tom Knight, formerly CEO of Codify Health, also recently joined as COO.
"I was immediately taken by the ExplORer Surgical’s innovative idea and was incredibly impressed by the team," said Fine over email. "A challenge of creating an enterprise level software that solves critical issues for surgical teams and seamlessly integrates into hospital operating room’s infrastructure appealed to my problem solving and creative nature."
ExplORer Surgical is working with 15 to 20 surgeons at hospitals including Northwestern, Vanderbilt and hospital network SSM (which runs community hospitals throughout the Midwest). Expansion has allowed ExplORer to test their tech with other settings, said Fried, and "see the difference between University of Chicago and Vanderbilt, and some of these smaller community hospitals."
Fried said the funding will also be used to further commercialize and scale the tech, as well as expand to additional surgical procedures.
