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LONDON – September 22, 2020 – FundamentalVR, global leaders in using immersive technology to improve the way surgeons are trained, announces Allan May as Chairman of the company. In his role, May will lead the company’s continued growth in the United States and scale its surgical education and data insight platform, Fundamental Surgery. He will also establish a west coast office for the company.
A highly respected and established figure in Silicon Valley, May joins FundamentalVR as Chairman with decades of experience in funding, leading, and co-founding companies across biotech, Medtech, and diagnostics. He is the founder of Life Science Angels, a Bay Area early-stage investment group that has invested over $70 million in more than 70 biotech, medical device, diagnostics, and mobile health companies. He is also a Venture Partner at Medtech Convergence Fund, a $90 million seed, and early-stage venture capital fund. May will continue his work with Life Science Angels and Medtech Convergence Fund while serving as Chairman at FundamentalVR.
In 2007, May co-founded Emergent Medical Partners, a venture fund focused on early-stage medical device companies that have invested $70 million in more than 30 startups. For the last 25 years, May has served as founder, Chairman, or CEO at ten startup medical device and diagnostic companies. He has also been an investor in over 65 Medtech, biotech, and diagnostic startups. Recent companies he has co-founded include Nanostim, a developer of the first Leadless Cardiac Pacemaker, and Hyalex Surgical, a company that creates synthetic cartilage for total joints.
Established in 2015, FundamentalVR develops bespoke immersive training simulations for medical device and pharmaceutical companies and serves medical institutions and teaching hospitals through its device agnostic Fundamental Surgery platform. In 2019, it completed a series A funding round, which included participation from two leading medical institutions – Mayo Clinic, one of America’s leading centers of medical excellence, and Sana Kliniken, the third-largest hospital organization in Germany.
“We are thrilled to have Allan join FundamentalVR as Chairman and look forward to working with him during this time where we have seen interest and adoption of immersive medical technology skyrocketing during COVID,’’ said Richard Vincent, co-founder and CEO of FundamentalVR. “Allan has the experience to help us scale quickly and ensure that all surgeons, residents, and trainees around the world have access to safe and affordable training methods.”
Named as one of the best inventions of 2018 by Time magazine and 2019 winners of the SXSW Innovation Award for VR/AR & MR, Fundamental Surgery’s multimodal, multiuser platform was launched in August 2018. Its HapticVRTM modality combines virtual reality with cutting-edge haptics to create a scalable ‘flight simulator’ experience for trainees and qualified surgeons, allowing them to experience and navigate the same visuals, sounds, and feelings they would during an actual surgical procedure.
Its @HomeVR modality brings Fundamental Surgery’s educational simulations to standalone VR headsets such as Oculus Quest and HTC Vive Focus Plus. It complements the gold standard education capabilities of the HapticVRTM modality and expands the platform to provide even more flexible and cost-effective learning opportunities.
Fundamental Surgery simulations have been accredited by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the Royal College of Surgeons of England, allowing the use of either modality to count towards a surgeons’ ongoing professional development. It can be seen in action here.
“The combination of massive economic dislocation and social distancing brought on by COVID-19 are proving the forces needed to drive permanent change in surgical training and testing as well as the marketing and adoption of new medical devices,” commented May. “FundamentalVR are market leaders in surgical AR/VR technology. The combination of its haptics, multi-user capabilities, sophisticated use cases and applications will allow the company to dominate U.S. surgical training as it is uniquely positioned to provide the proficiency tools and metrics needed to lower the learning curve for trainee and qualified surgeons.”
