Caresyntax hauls in $100M to expand its surgical data analytics business

Caresyntax has closed a $100 million series C funding round that the Boston-based startup said will help further develop its digital surgery data platform and support expansion within its focus markets.

PFM Health Sciences headlined the raise, which included support from new backers Optum Ventures, Intel Capital, Lauxera Capital Partners, Vesalius Biocapital Partners, Arno Capital and Rezayat Invest. Prior investors IPF Partners, Relyens and Surgical.AI also participated.

This raise brings the tech company’s lifetime funding to $177.5 million.

Caresyntax’s enterprise products collect surgical data from inside of the operating room and through other sources such as medical devices, imaging or an organization’s electronic health record system.

By unifying these data streams, the company says it delivers a range of evidence-based insights that can drive decision-making inside of the operating room. Its artificial intelligence and automation tools are designed to help surgeons manage their workflows, hospital administrators monitor performance trends and resources across the unit, and surgical teams review video and benchmarking data from prior procedures for training purposes.

Of note during the pandemic, the company’s technology allows providers and device vendors to teleconsult directly into a procedure. Those on the other end of the line can pull up a patient’s file or the operating room schedule as well as guide a laser pointer inside of the operating room, view multiple video feeds and make real-time notes and screen annotations.

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Alongside providers, Caresyntax markets its digital products to medical device vendors for the aforementioned remote support and other market insights, and to payers as a means of increasing transparency inside and outside of the operating room.

“Caresyntax is helping bend the curve towards better patient outcomes and more efficient workflow through extracting unique insights from structured and unstructured data in surgery,” Anant Ahuja, M.D., partner at PFM Health Sciences, said in a statement. “We are highly confident their technology platform will reduce clinical and business risks for all stakeholders in surgery, as it grows into a first-of-its-kind enterprise solution for data analytics in the operating room.”

Caresyntax said in the announcement that the nine-figure raise would support the continued development of its AI analytics as it builds out its product platforms. The company said it will also be ramping up hiring efforts as it looks to speed up expansion across “key markets.”

As of today, the company said its products are employed among more than 4,000 operating rooms worldwide, supporting over 2 million procedures annually.

“Operating rooms always need to perform as effectively and efficiently as possible, but this is especially true now to make up for the surgical backlog,” Dennis Kogan, Caresyntax’s founder and CEO, said in a statement. “With better technology to safely automate surgical pathways while generating decision-grade real-world evidence, we will strategically improve health care decision-making, mitigate surgical risks, and advance high-value medical technology.”

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Caresyntax’s most recent raise came at the tail-end of 2019 when it raised $45.6 million alongside the acquisition of cost analytics and operations software maker Syus. Kogan said at the time that Syus’ operational efficiency and cost analytics tools would allow the platform to generate more comprehensive insights for Caresyntax’s customers.  

The company also highlights a number of partnerships with educators and providers.

Within the past few months, Caresyntax partnered with the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the University of Iowa Health Care to install hardware that can collect procedure performances for review. Overseas, it highlights business deals with European medical malpractice reinsurer Relyens and Israel’s Sheba Medical Center.

The digital surgery space has seen a fair share of activity as of late. Just last week, healthcare AI startup Olive announced it would be dipping into the operating room with its acquisition of Salt Lake City-based Empiric Health. The well-funded startup said that this would provide it with the capabilities to spot unwarranted surgical variation.

Looking a bit further back, Medtronic acquired London-based Digital Surgery last year to integrate the company’s AI and surgical video education tools with its hardware offerings.