Surge Raises $2.6M, Secures Exclusive Licensing Agreement with Stanford to Make Surgeries Safer

Surge's technology predicts postoperative complications

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 23, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Biotech and medical AI innovator Surge announced a $2.6 million round co-led by HCVC, a global early-stage fund dedicated to high-potential technology startups, and Boutique Venture Partners, a leading fund based in the Silicon Valley. Veteran angel investors, including Nicolas Godin, the COO/CFO of Cardiologs, also participated in the round. Surge was awarded the 2022 iLab grant, along with other non-dilutive grants to complete the fundraising.

Hosted in the US by StartX, a nonprofit founders community, as well as supported in Europe by Agoranov, 50 Partners, and Wilco, Surge's flagship product uses innovative machine learning algorithms to decode a patient's immune system from a blood sample. This technology enables physicians to quickly forecast the risk of postoperative complications. With 30% of major surgeries currently resulting in complications and 40% of patients aged 65 and above suffering long-lasting cognitive impacts after orthopedic or cardiac surgery, Surge's solution enables targeted and personalized interventions to reduce patients' risk of postsurgical complications.

A patented solution

Surge's technology combines a biological analysis of the immune system with an AI algorithm, enabling it to calculate each patient's risk of surgical complications and propose customized preventive management strategies to optimize the care pathway.

A multi-year transfer & collaboration

Surge has obtained from Stanford University the exclusive license to the patented  postoperative complication prediction technology developed through more than ten years of research on surgical risk prediction conducted by Brice Gaudillière, MD, PhD, Physician-Scientist and Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In the summer of 2022, Surge also signed a research agreement with Stanford with the goal of developing biotech innovations.

The funding round will enable Surge to further develop its team and conduct clinical studies with other hospitals, such as the one started in the spring of 2022 with the Foch Hospital in Suresnes, France. The Foch study, launched in spring 2022, will validate Surge's prediction of surgical site infections in abdominal surgery.

A strong growth market

Of the nearly 6.1 million and 5.1 million abdominal surgeries conducted each year in the United States and Europe respectively, approximately 30% result in postoperative complications such as infections, cognitive decline, or thrombo-embolic accidents. These complications usually require additional care or re-hospitalization leading to high healthcare costs and patient morbidity and mortality. The burden of complications is increasing as the population ages and the number of surgeries increases almost 5% per year (Transparency Market Research).

"We are proud to support Surge in its ambition to reduce the risk of postoperative complications. Its international, multidisciplinary team inspires respect. They have created very strong relationships spanning both the French and American academic worlds, with partners including, AP-HP, and Institut Pasteur, and Stanford building a solid network that will allow them to achieve their goals." -Alexis Houssou, founder of HCVC Partners

"At Boutique, we are thrilled to partner with Surge's team to help decode immune fingerprints to accurately identify patients at risk before surgery. What impresses us most about Surge is the ability to integrate a proprietary machine-learning algorithm with single-cell and plasma proteomic data to predict surgical complications, including infection and cognitive decline. We were familiar with Dr. Gaudillière's work at Stanford (before even meeting him) and his approach of using the power of single-cell mass cytometry (CyTOF) to identify immune dysfunction that drives pathological stressors". – Dr. Rami El Assal, Managing General Partner & Co-founder of Boutique Venture Partners.

"Our ambition is to develop the reference solution for surgical precision medicine. We plan to expand and diversify the applications of our technology with immune profiling tools for all surgical complications. Eventually, we also want to apply our methodology to other therapeutic areas." -Julien Hédou, President and Co-founder of Surge.

Surge is a biotech company focused on optimizing treatment for patients undergoing surgery. Our multidisciplinary team has developed a test to identify patients at risk for complications. By anticipating surgical risks to enable personalization of the care pathway, this innovation will revolutionize the patient experience and shift the standard of surgical care. Our team shares a common vision for healthcare innovation: to develop patient-focused solutions that benefit the entire healthcare system.  https://www.surge.care/

HCVC is a thesis-driven fund that backs hardtech founders on a mission to digitize, automate and decarbonize the physical world. We focus primarily on seed stage investments, from Pre-Seed to Series A. HCVC also manages Hardware Club, the largest selective global community of hardtech startups. HCVC has offices in Paris and San Francisco. https://www.hcvc.co/

Boutique Venture Partners is a US-based venture capital fund in Palo Alto, California that focuses on emerging health and life science solutions to make a meaningful impact. We are a team of relentless scientists and clinicians who partner with exceptional founders to create innovative, distributive approaches that improve health and wellness. We build on our strong connection to the healthcare ecosystem to gain rapid access to innovations and discoveries from academic institutes and industry. We focus on early-stage companies that are developing new platforms, have deep domain expertise, are staffed by skilled entrepreneurs, have strong intellectual property and high growth potential while demonstrating societal impact. https://www.boutiquevc.com/

Media contact:
Ran Xu
[email protected]
213-309-2373

SOURCE Surge