In a world where surgical robots are becoming increasingly common in operating rooms, a critical gap remains: the ability to emulate the judgment and experience of veteran surgeons. Despite the precision and repeatability of these machines, they lack one essential element: clinical wisdom. Addressing this gap is MDA (Medical Decision Alliance), a healthcare startup from Leipzig, Germany. The company has secured €3.3 million in seed funding to tackle one of the most pressing challenges in modern surgery: how to make surgical knowledge universally available, scalable, and support decision-making during operations.
The seed financing round was led by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), one of Germany’s most active early-stage investors. Private investors and life science entrepreneurs participated. Many of these investors have deep domain expertise in life sciences and MedTech, bringing both capital and crucial industry knowledge.
Fuel for growth: Scaling expertise and impact
The funding will enable MDA to accelerate its mission of creating AI-powered assistance systems that support surgical teams with real-time, expert-driven guidance. With this injection of funding, MDA plans to double the size of its team, bringing on additional experts in AI development, clinical research, and product integration. A core part of the plan involves expanding its network of clinical knowledge providers, experienced surgeons whose expertise will be systematically captured, and onboarding more medical device companies as collaborators.
The startup will also intensify development of its AI-based training and assistance solutions, aiming to offer decision-support tools that adapt to specific surgical workflows and patient conditions. Another key focus is the further build-out of its digital training platform, the Virtual Proctor, which will serve both surgeons in training and MedTech partners showcasing innovative tools.
Seasoned founders with a proven track record
MDA is led by a founding team with deep roots in healthcare innovation: Dr Gunter Trojandt, Annett Christ, and Daniel Bauer, supported by business angels Jozsef Bugovics and Nils Kröber. The team previously built and scaled the Surgical Process Institute (SPI), which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 2017, a testament to their ability to create value in the operating theatre domain.
The founders bring a rare blend of medical, technical, and entrepreneurial expertise. Dr Trojandt’s background spans medical decision-making and digital innovation; Christ has long experience leading healthcare ventures; Bauer brings strategic and operational strength. Their work at SPI laid the groundwork for the approach MDA is now refining, integrating surgical best practices into digital tools that assist, educate, and enhance outcomes.
Encoding surgical wisdom into algorithms
At the heart of MDA’s innovation is a software system that records world-class surgeons’ techniques, workflows, and decision-making styles. This data is used to develop AI-based algorithms that can guide surgical teams in real-time, almost like having an experienced mentor present during complex procedures.
Such a tool can dramatically reduce error rates, improve surgical efficiency, and support better patient outcomes. The solutions are being designed closely with clinicians and medical technology manufacturers, ensuring relevance and seamless integration in real-world surgical environments.
Unlike traditional decision-support tools, MDA’s AI is designed to process real-time feeds from electronic health records, imaging systems, and even robotic sensors, allowing for dynamic risk assessments that update as the procedure unfolds. For example, during a prostatectomy, the system could cross-reference live patient data with thousands of historical cases to anticipate and help prevent complications, such as unexpected bleeding or injury to adjacent structures.
Revolutionising surgical training and support
The Virtual Proctor platform, MDA’s flagship educational solution, offers 24/7 access to expertly designed surgical protocols, videos, and clinical insights. Aiming to train the next generation of surgeons, it combines evidence-based guidelines with practical, hands-on knowledge from top global practitioners.
Moreover, it serves as a showcase platform for medtech companies to demonstrate how their devices are used by experts, offering visual and conceptual content aligned with clinical needs. This feature creates a robust ecosystem where knowledge, tools, and training converge in a single interface, a potential game-changer for hospitals and surgical teams worldwide.
MDA’s approach also addresses the global shortage of experienced surgeons, a challenge projected to reach 15 million by 2030. The platform can help democratize access to high-quality surgical training by digitising and scaling expert knowledge, especially in low-resource regions where mentorship is scarce.
The Virtual Proctor system uses advanced AI to break down expert techniques into measurable parameters, such as instrument angles and decision times during complications. This allows for adaptive training, where trainees receive real-time feedback and the AI adjusts performance-based scenarios. Such innovations mirror advancements in surgical simulation platforms, which have been shown to accelerate learning and reduce error rates.
MDA’s approach intersects several booming sectors: surgical robotics, medical AI, and digital health education. Its model is scalable and globally relevant, particularly in regions with limited access to expert surgical mentoring.
With three partnerships established with major medical technology companies, MDA is a key enabler of the next generation of innovative surgical systems. Its value proposition is strong, enhancing the intelligence of surgical robots, standardising surgical excellence, and accelerating the learning curve for young professionals.
Importantly, MDA is actively working to ensure its AI systems are free from bias and applicable across diverse patient populations. The company is building its reference database with input from surgeons of varying backgrounds and specialities, and is implementing explainable AI modules that provide transparent rationales for recommendations, critical for clinician trust and regulatory approval.
A smarter future for surgery
As the global healthcare industry embraces automation and AI, the need for contextual, expert-level decision-making becomes increasingly urgent. The startup tackles this head-on by embedding decades of surgical wisdom into intuitive software systems, making surgery safer, smarter, and more scalable.
With its experienced team, strong investor backing, and clear product vision, MDA is set to play a defining role in shaping the future of surgery, where expert knowledge is no longer limited to a single operating room but distributed and available to all.
“Together with MDA, we have digitised all key aspects of our surgical skills and developed an AI-based workflow engine called Virtual Proctor. Other clinics and doctors can now access it and benefit from our 20 years of experience – as far as I know, there is no other system like it,” said Professor Markus Graefen, Medical Director of the Martini-Klinik at UKE GmbH, the Prostate Cancer Centre at the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf.
Dr Lena-Sophie Schütter, Investment Manager at HTGF, commented: “MDA’s well-coordinated team combines experience, expertise and a strong network – qualities that already characterised the success of their previous start-up. They are laying the foundation for AI-based training and decision-making algorithms through the structured development of a unique reference database. In this way, they create the conditions for greater safety, comparability and cross-clinic standards in robotic surgery – to provide better patient care.”
Looking ahead, MDA envisions a phased evolution of surgical AI: starting with real-time decision support, moving towards shared control where AI handles routine tasks, and eventually enabling conditional autonomy for standard procedures under human supervision. This roadmap aligns with global trends in surgical robotics and could help address both the skill gap and workforce shortages facing healthcare systems worldwide.
