Amidst challenges in healthcare and the global pandemic, company sees customer and investor interest soar for virtual training
PALO ALTO, Calif. – Sept. 21, 2020 – Osso VR, a validated Virtual Reality (VR) surgical training platform, today announced it has raised $14M in Series A funding, led by Kaiser Permanente Ventures, with participation from SignalFire, GSR, Scrum Ventures, Leslie Ventures and OCA Ventures.
Osso VR’s platform has become integral to surgical training programs worldwide, currently used by 20+ leading teaching hospitals and 11 top medical device companies in 20 countries. It recently debuted its new platform with an exceptional level of visual fidelity surrounding every aspect of surgery, from anatomical detail to the OR environment. This novel, cinema-quality immersive experience is a result of Osso VR’s unique creative team makeup, consisting of the world’s largest medical illustration team and alums from Industrial Light & Magic, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, and Apple. In a recent validation study, surgeons training with Osso VR showed a 230 percent improvement in overall surgical performance. 
“I have spent my career focused on the use of technology in clinical practice and know that proper training is critical to optimizing patient outcomes” said Amy Belt Raimundo, Managing Director, Kaiser Permanente Ventures. “Being able to perform safe repetitions of procedures has great value, whether it’s for a new resident or an experienced physician who is learning an innovative procedure. Virtual means of training eliminate the restrictions of geography and associated travel costs, so that training can scale regionally, nationally and globally. Nothing has underscored the value of the distributed training model more than the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“I’ve had the opportunity to be on the forefront of healthcare innovation for many years now, and I’ve been witness to accelerating challenges around technical training for healthcare professionals,” said Bryan Sivak, board member and former CTO for the U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services. “The global pandemic has significantly exacerbated these challenges, and Osso VR has created a unique, specialized platform that can solve this problem at scale, providing a level of access and maintenance of quality for technical performance in healthcare that up until now had not been possible.”
“Osso VR is one of the first companies to successfully commercialize VR as a scalable SaaS business offering an automated content creation engine. This delivers a transformational and lower-friction training modality than PDF guides and operating on cadavers,” said Wayne Hu, Partner at SignalFire. “Justin and the team are a force of nature, tackling the incredibly important challenge of closing the healthcare training gap, and we’re proud to have backed them since the very beginning.”
Osso VR’s training platform is designed for surgeons, sales teams and other healthcare professionals to address complexities in learning new procedures, refreshing on familiar ones, and integrating higher value medical devices by providing realistic, haptic-enhanced interactions in an immersive training environment that is both repeatable and measurable. Justin Barad, MD, CEO and co-founder of Osso VR, is a lifelong coder, has a game credit with Activision, and originally wanted to be a game developer. When a personal family health incident introduced him to the world of healthcare, he decided to find a way to combine his passions and use his technology background to solve medical problems.
“Being on the frontlines as a provider gives me a daily reminder that we are facing an accelerating challenge with how we train for and practice procedures in medicine,” said Barad. “We set out from day one with a focused mission: to improve patient outcomes, increase the adoption of higher value medical technology, and democratize access to surgical education around the world. Osso VR has done so much in such a short amount of time, yet we have much more to do. With strategic partners like Kaiser Permanente Ventures, we are ready to work together to ensure that patients all around the world have safe access to the best care.”
For more information about Osso VR, visit www.ossovr.com.
About Osso VR
Osso VR is an award-winning, clinically validated surgical training platform designed for medical device companies, practicing surgeons, residents and medical students of all skill levels. Using immersive VR technology, the scalable platform offers a realistic, hands-on training environment that leads to real world performance gains and ultimately improved patient outcomes. Osso VR is the first training platform to incorporate assessment into its modules, objectively measuring the trainee’s knowledge of steps, level of precision and overall efficiency throughout the procedure providing a benchmark for proficiency.
Led by UCLA and Harvard trained orthopedic surgeon Justin Barad, MD, the Osso VR team has a deep background in clinical care, medical technology, and VR development. To learn more, visit www.ossovr.com.