ultrasound-guidance
(3)
Avail Built a Window Into the Operating Room. Mendaera Wants to Put a Hand Through It.
The company that made surgical expertise travel by screen ran out of money. Its technology found a second life inside a handheld robotics company that is trying to make a difficult first step in care easier to repeat.
Mendaera, Inc.
Mendaera is a Silicon Valley healthcare technology company building Focalist, a fist-sized handheld robotic system that pairs real-time ultrasound imaging with robotic needle guidance and AI to make precise, needle-based procedures more accessible across specialties. Founded in 2020 by Josh DeFonzo and Jason Wilson, both alumni of Auris Health, and backed by Intuitive Surgical and Auris co-founder Dr. Fred Moll, the company aims to move robotics beyond the operating room and into the everyday procedures that make up the bulk of medicine.
Darryl Barnes
Darryl Barnes is a physician-turned-inventor who co-founded Sonex Health, an Eagan, Minnesota medtech company building ultrasound-guided devices that move carpal tunnel and trigger finger surgery out of the operating room and into the clinic office. A former Mayo Clinic sports medicine doctor, he co-invented the UltraGuideCTR device, holds numerous medical device patents, and helped raise more than $60 million to scale the company. He has served as both CEO and chief technology officer, and was named Medical Devices CEO of the Year for the Upper Midwest in 2018.