Vicarious Surgical, a robotics-based medical company, today announced that it’s merging with D8 Holdings, a special purpose acquisition company. Vicarious Surgical is slated to go public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) where it is expected to garner up to $460 million, with an estimated $1.1 billion valuation.
Founded in Massachusetts in 2014, Vicarious Surgical has been developing what it calls “human-like surgical robots” connected to VR headsets, which is said to transport surgeons inside a patient to perform minimally invasive surgery.
“Our robotic solution has arms that replicate human motion, offering remarkable mobility with 9 degrees of freedom per arm with 360-degree visualization, all through a 1.5 cm incision,” co-founder & CEO of Vicarious Surgical Adam Sachs says in a press statement.
The company’s robot can “see, reach, and work anywhere inside the abdomen,” and effectively ‘shrinks’ the surgeon so they can work from a new perspective.
“Our system fits through a standard door making it portable from operating room to operating room, and does not require a large footprint or facility construction build-out,” Sachs says. “With cost of goods that are significantly lower than competing products, we believe our robotic solution will offer a cost-effective path to improving patient outcomes and increasing the efficiency of surgical procedures for hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers.”
Once the merger is finalized, the company will retain its Various Surgical branding as goes public on the NYSE under the new ticker symbol “RBOT”.
Vicarious Surgical says if everything goes to plan, it estimates it will be valued at approximately $1.1 billion, making it another VR unicorn company. Including investment by medical technology company BD, the raise includes investment from Bill Gates, Vinod Khosla’s Khosla Ventures, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, and Philip Liang’s E15 VC.
This comes shortly after social VR platform Rec Room announced a $100 million investment, putting it at an estimated $1.25 billion valuation.