Petal Surgical shows its histotripsy robot and says first-in-human is close

Petal Surgical showed its incisionless surgery system publicly for the first time and said it is close to first-in-human. The platform pairs histotripsy, focused ultrasound that liquefies tissue mechanically instead of heating it, with robotic positioning and AI targeting.

CEO Prash Chopra would not give a date. "We are close. We are not looking at multiple years, but we are also not looking at a few days," he told MassDevice. The company is finishing preclinical studies.

Petal has raised more than $25M since leaving stealth in October 2025. Intuitive Surgical co-founder Fred Moll and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan are backers, alongside Draper Associates, Blue Pool Capital, Actions Capital, ShangBay Capital, TSVC, Salience Capital and A&E Investments. The founding team includes Chopra, Mako Surgical co-founder Rony Abovitz, neurosurgeon Bowen Jiang, and Nicholas Theodore, who helped build robot-assisted spine surgery.

Histotripsy already has an FDA precedent: HistoSonics won authorization for liver tumor treatment in 2023. Petal is adding robotics and autonomy on top of a modality the agency has now reviewed, which shortens the classification argument and very little else.