On November 10th, Kangnostem, a Chinese innovative unicorn enterprise specializing in surgical robotics, announced the completion of a new round of oversubscribed financing totaling approximately USD 200 million (equivalent to around RMB 1.424 billion).
Record-Breaking Financing: Capital’s Strong Vote of Confidence for Surgical Robotics Unicorn
The lineup of investors for this financing round is quite prestigious, co-led by a Hong Kong-based investment management company, a global strategic investor, and a top-tier global sovereign wealth fund. Existing shareholders such as Qiming Venture Partners, Daohe Investment, Gaorong Capital, and (Xianfeng) also continued to increase their investments. This once again demonstrates the capital market’s high recognition of Kangnostem’s technological strength and development prospects.
One of the co-lead investors, the Hong Kong-based investment company, is a patient capital investment institution fully owned by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government and acting on its behalf. It has previously invested in several star enterprises such as Galaxy General Robotics and SMore Technology.
The funds raised will be mainly used to accelerate the commercialization process in China and overseas, as well as to advance the research and development of next-generation products and their clinical registrations.
In fact, Kangnostem has long been favored by “major players” in the industry, with Meituan being one of them. From the RMB 500 million Series B financing in 2021, to the RMB 800 million financing in 2023, and then to the RMB 500 million Series C financing, Meituan’s three consecutive investments in Kangnostem are particularly striking.
Based on the currently disclosed amounts, Kangnostem’s cumulative financing has exceeded RMB 3 billion.
Technological Prowess & Commercial Leap: From Core Tech Mastery to Clinical Application Breakthroughs
Such intensive favor from capital is inseparable from Kangnostem’s profound accumulation in technology and products over the years.
Founded in 2019, Kangnostem focuses on the development, manufacturing, and sales of high-end surgical robots, and is committed to building a safe and efficient surgical robot platform.
Through technological breakthroughs, Kangnostem is not only the first innovative surgical robot enterprise in China to conduct clinical trials in the international market on a global scale, but also the first Chinese laparoscopic surgical robot brand to complete human clinical trials simultaneously in mainland China and Hong Kong.
The company’s strong strength is inseparable from the leadership of its key figure. Ou Guowei, the founder of the company, holds a PhD from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has over 25 years of in-depth experience in the surgical robotics industry. He previously worked at Intuitive Surgical, a global leader in surgical robotics, where he led the development of the da Vinci Si software and the control algorithm for the single-site surgical platform, among other projects.
Led by top surgical robot experts and professionals in various disciplines, Kangnostem has overcome “bottleneck” challenges, fully mastered core technologies such as mechanical architecture, electrical architecture, software architecture, complex algorithms, and visual imaging, and completed the construction of an underlying technology platform for surgical robots. Up to now, the company has achieved a multi-pipeline layout covering soft-tissue surgical robots and surgical robots for other major specialized fields.
2024 marks Kangnostem’s first year of commercialization. Its independently developed Sentire® Laparoscopic Surgical Robot officially obtained approval for marketing from China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) on September 29, 2024.
Entering 2025, Kangnostem has accelerated its pace of technological innovation and clinical application.
In August, Kangnostem, together with the research team of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, developed the world’s first multi-functional automated embodied intelligence platform for surgical robots, and successfully completed the world’s first autonomous surgical verification in a clinical scenario using the Sentire® Laparoscopic Surgical Robot.
In September, experts from the Urology and Nephrology Hospital of Xi’an People’s Hospital (Xi’an Fourth Hospital) joined hands with the Urology Team of Huyi District People’s Hospital to successfully complete two Grade IV urological surgeries with the assistance of Kangnostem’s surgical robot. This marks a new breakthrough in the application of domestic surgical robots in primary hospitals.
Currently, Kangnostem has established four major R&D centers worldwide, with branches in Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai (China), Boston (USA), Amsterdam (the Netherlands), and Portsmouth (the UK). It has also built a mass production factory of over 10,000 square meters in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
In July this year, Kangnostem officially signed an agreement with Wujin High-Tech Zone in Changzhou, and the surgical robot consumables R&D center and production base project settled in the Wujin High-Tech Industrial Research and Technology Park. To ensure the sterility, precision, and consistency of critical surgical consumables—such as specialized syringes used in minimally invasive procedures—the base has introduced advanced syringe automatic assembly equipment, enabling high-speed, dust-free automated production that meets strict medical device quality standards. This project will focus on the R&D and production of core consumables for surgical robots, further enhancing Kangnostem’s independent control capabilities in key manufacturing links and improving its global supply support and production capacity layout.
Blue Ocean Market Outlook: Domestic Surgical Robotics Ushering in a Golden Development Period
Surgical robots are known as the “pearl of high-precision and advanced technologies” in the medical device field. Integrating multi-disciplinary technologies such as mechanical engineering, artificial intelligence, medical imaging, and precision manufacturing, they are not only a “hard indicator” for measuring a country’s medical and technological strength, but also bring tangible changes to clinical practice. They can not only significantly improve the precision, safety, and efficiency of surgeries, but also lower the learning threshold for doctors, promote the upgrading of surgical procedures towards minimal invasiveness, intelligence, and standardization, and inject strong impetus into the transformation and upgrading of the medical industry.
Strong clinical value has spawned a broad blue ocean market. According to Frost & Sullivan’s forecast, the global surgical robot market size will reach USD 28.5 billion by 2025, showing a rapid growth momentum. However, at present, foreign-funded enterprises still occupy most of the Chinese market, while the growth potential demonstrated by domestic enterprises cannot be ignored.
Data from Frost & Sullivan shows that the Chinese surgical robot market expanded at a high annual compound growth rate of over 40% in 2024, but its scale only accounted for 7% of the global market, leaving a huge market gap to be filled. A report by the China Commercial Industry Research Institute further points out that the Chinese market size has reached approximately RMB 9.59 billion in 2024, with a compound annual growth rate of 34.5% in the past five years, and is expected to exceed RMB 11.03 billion in 2025.
With the increasing maturity of domestic technologies, the accelerated launch of approved products, and the gradual inclination of medical insurance policies, the market share of domestic surgical robots is expected to continue to rise, and the industry is ushering in an unprecedented golden development period.
What is the work done using automated equipment and machines called?
