Scalpel AI Raises £3.8M to Digitise Surgical Instrument Tracking With Computer Vision

October 31, 2024

Scalpel AI, a London-based medtech startup, has raised £3.8 million in a funding round led by Mercia Ventures, with Tensor Ventures and private investors also participating. The capital will be used to accelerate global expansion and roll out the company's technology with major healthcare supply chain operators, including sterile services departments, hospitals, and third-party logistics providers such as GlobalMed Logistix. The company was founded in 2017 by Dr Yeshwanth Pulijala, a specialist in medical visualisation who witnessed firsthand the consequences of surgical tool mismanagement during his clinical training, and Dr Shahnawaz Ahmed.

The management of surgical instruments and implants is one of the most error-prone and resource-intensive elements of hospital operations. Each surgical procedure depends on precise instrument sets being available, clean, and correctly configured in the theatre — yet the logistics chain connecting device manufacturers, sterile services departments, and operating rooms has historically relied on manual checking, barcodes, and RFID tags. These methods are prone to human error, particularly under staffing pressures, and cannot provide real-time, automated visibility across the full movement of a tool or tray.

Scalpel AI addresses this with a computer vision and machine learning platform that identifies and tracks surgical instruments without requiring any physical tags. The system generates a digital twin for each instrument, following its journey from vendor warehouse through sterilisation cycles and into the operating theatre, verifying at each handover that trays contain the correct equipment and flagging discrepancies before they become clinical risks. The platform can also classify implants and consumables, extending its utility beyond reusable instruments into the broader surgical inventory ecosystem.

The company has established partnerships with leading medical device companies and healthcare organisations, with deployments demonstrating measurable reductions in equipment loss and logistics costs. Dr Pulijala has described the financial impact on large hospital systems as potentially saving millions of dollars per year through reduced instrument loss, fewer cancelled procedures due to missing equipment, and more efficient sterilisation workflows. The vision is for Scalpel AI's platform to become the industry-standard operating layer for surgical logistics globally.

Lee Lindley of Mercia Ventures noted that ensuring surgical trays contain the right equipment is fundamental to an effective healthcare system, and highlighted the contrast between Scalpel AI's AI-driven approach and the basic mechanisms — barcodes, RFID, manual checks — that currently dominate the sector. The funding round positions the company to expand internationally and build toward that goal of setting a new global standard for surgical instrument management.

Sources