Lei Jun and Lenovo invested in this surgical robot

3 rounds of financing in 3 years, another potential stock in the sub-segment

Recently, Beijing Zhiyu Medical Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhiyu Medical") officially completed the Pre-A++ round of financing.

It is reported that this round of financing was led by Chende Capital, followed by Lenovo Star, and old shareholders Shunwei Capital, Lilly Asia Ventures (LAV), and Zhonghai Investment continued to increase their investment, with an amount of more than 60 million yuan. The funds raised will be used for the company's clinical trials of surgical robots and the research and development of new product pipelines.

Lei Jun and Lenovo both invested

Zhiyu Medical was founded in May 2021. Just four months later, it received financing from Shunwei Capital and Yizhuang Holdings. So far, Zhiyu Medical, which has been established for more than three years, has completed three rounds of financing. Among the luxurious lineup of investors, Shunwei and Lenovo are the most eye-catching.

Shunwei Capital has had its own traffic since its inception.

In 2011, Lei Jun and Xu Dalai, who is known as the "unicorn hunter", jointly established Shunwei Capital. The company's name means "follow the trend", that is, follow the trend of smart hardware and Xiaomi, work with Xiaomi, and use technology to change the world. The company focuses on emerging technology industries such as smart manufacturing and Internet+, and has invested in many high-quality innovative companies with development potential.

In the past three months alone, Shunwei Capital has been involved in many large financings in the robotics field.

In February, Yushu Technology completed a B2 round of financing of nearly 1 billion yuan, and Shunwei had led Yushu's A round of financing in 2021, and continued to bet on the subsequent B round of financing; in March, Shunwei Capital successively invested in two mobile robot companies, Qianxun Intelligence and Sachi Intelligence, of which Sachi Intelligence raised nearly 100 million yuan; in April, Luoshi Robotics completed a strategic + round of financing of more than 500 million yuan, and Shunwei had led the B round of financing in 2018; and Shunwei also participated in the angel round investment of Zhiyu Medical, which received investment this time, in 2021, and continued to pay attention to and support it in the future...

It is not difficult to see from this that Mr. Lei is optimistic about and favors the robotics industry. He not only joins the "battle" himself, promotes robot dogs, builds humanoid robots, establishes a robotics department in conjunction with Wuhan University, and takes the lead in national key research and development projects, but also casts a wide net and continuously expands his circle of friends. His "ambition" is evident.

Lenovo is also a "veteran" in the field of robot investment.

At the beginning of this year, Lenovo led the angel round of financing of more than 100 million yuan for Tsinghua-affiliated humanoid robot company Xingdong Jiyuan; in March, it continued to follow up on the 100 million yuan Pre-B financing of Benmo Technology; in the field of surgical robots, Lenovo also led the 800 million yuan financing of Connostron and invested in vascular interventional surgical robot Aibo Medical in the angel round...

Lenovo Group's senior vice president once said: "Currently, medical robots , especially surgical robots, are only widely used in the United States. The domestic market is relatively vacant and has huge industrial potential." What are the unique features of Zhiyu Medical's products and business prospects that Lenovo and Shunwei have jointly invested in?

Focus on niche areas

Since its inception, Zhiyu Medical has targeted the niche field of urology. Focusing on the niche market is conducive to quickly accumulating experience and resources, improving the efficiency of product development and clinical trials, and helping the company enter the large-scale application stage as soon as possible.

The reason why we chose urology as our entry point is that there is a huge and unmet clinical demand in this field worldwide. According to statistics, more than half of men over 50 years old suffer from benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), and the incidence rate continues to rise with age. At the same time, prostate cancer has become the second leading cause of cancer death in men.

Against this backdrop, the urology surgical robot market has great growth potential.

According to data, the scale of China's surgical robot market will reach 68.72 billion yuan by 2030. At present, although laparoscopic surgical robots represented by Da Vinci occupy a dominant position, niche areas such as urology still face large clinical gaps and competition opportunities.

Filling domestic gaps

Zhiyu Medical's team has top R&D and management talents from leading medical companies at home and abroad, with rich experience and outstanding achievements in R&D, manufacturing, product commercialization and other fields. The company's core founding team comes from global leaders in medical imaging equipment, robotics and surgical energy devices, and has a deep insight into the development of the industry.

The core product, metaFlow? high-energy water jet autonomous surgical robot (water jet surgical robot), is China's first and internationally leading innovative medical product. This product is aimed at urology prostate hyperplasia surgery and has achieved dual innovations in robotic technology and clinical procedures.

Compared with traditional surgery, the water jet surgical robot combines the advantages of robotic automated operation and water jet heat-free, selective resection. Surgeons operate the robot and use real-time ultrasound images to draw the target area for resection. The robot then accurately controls the high-pressure water flow to automatically complete the resection. The entire process is efficient and accurate, without thermal damage, and can reduce the one-hour operation time to about five minutes.

Previously, although water jet surgery technology already existed, it was mainly used in the field of industrial production and had not fully penetrated into clinical medicine. Zhiyu Medical's breakthrough not only fills the gap in domestic urology water jet surgery, but is also expected to promote water jet technology from a single device to an overall intelligent treatment solution. In the future, water jet may become a new clinical surgery paradigm.

It is worth mentioning that in December 2023, Zhiyu Medical's water jet robot product passed the review of the National Medical Products Administration and was approved to enter the "green channel" of the special review procedure for innovative medical devices, and the approval cycle was greatly shortened compared with before. This progress reflects the strong support of regulatory authorities for domestic innovative medical devices and also paves the way for Zhiyu Medical's clinical transformation.

In addition, the company adopts a dual-wheel drive development strategy of "innovative energy devices + innovative surgical robots". Currently, the second and third product pipelines have entered the animal experiment stage. Through the parallel development of product lines, on the one hand, it can disperse R&D risks, and on the other hand, it is also conducive to technology empowerment and platform reuse.

At present, Zhiyu Medical has also established cooperative relationships with many leading medical device companies at home and abroad, and has carried out in-depth industry-university-research-medicine cooperation with many domestic double-first-class universities and top tertiary hospitals. This "internal and external" ecological chain layout model not only injects fresh blood into technological innovation, but also lays a good foundation for future product transformation.

Last words

The current "machine replacement" craze is sweeping the world, and the implementation of surgical robots reflects the deep integration of intelligent manufacturing and medical services. However, as an emerging frontier field, its prospects are broad, but it is not achieved overnight. Due to its high-tech and high-threshold attributes, the promotion of surgical robots has not been satisfactory.

From the perspective of opportunities, the country has created a good policy environment to vigorously promote medical device innovation. On the one hand, the green channel approval for innovation is used to accelerate the clinical transformation of innovative products; on the other hand, surgical robots are included in the scope of medical insurance payment to reduce the economic burden on patients; at the same time, the country has also accelerated local technological breakthroughs by increasing R&D investment and promoting domestic medical devices to replace imported products.

The birth and growth of companies such as Zhiyu Medical are the product of this favorable policy environment.

However, the current situation of mature application fields such as laparoscopic surgical robots being monopolized by foreign brands for a long time has not changed, and market education and business model cultivation will take time. In addition, there are large technical barriers in core components and patents, making it difficult to fully achieve localization in the short term.

In addition, the accumulation of clinical data, standardization of surgical procedures, and training of talent teams are all challenges facing the popularization of domestic surgical robots. Compared with mature fields such as medical imaging equipment, intelligent diagnosis and treatment equipment requires doctors to relearn and master surgical operations and accumulate a lot of practical experience before they can be promoted and used.

Therefore, intelligent surgery is the general trend, but there is still a long way to go before the industry can truly achieve a "big explosion".