KatoMed, a UC San Diego MedTech Accelerator Company, Shines
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Key Takeaways
- Kyocera Ventures recently invested in the surgical navigation startup KatoMed, which has deep ties to UC San Diego
- KatoMed licensed robotics IP from UC San Diego, hired engineering alumni, and thrived in the MedTech accelerator at the Jacobs School of Engineering
KatoMed, a San Diego-based startup that developed a navigation tool for spine surgery that could result in safer, less costly procedures and improved workflow for surgeons, has deep ties to the University of California San Diego. Those connections were on display recently, as the current and incoming presidents of Japanese electronics giant Kyocera attended a demo of KatoMed’s technology on campus, at the UC San Diego Center for the Future of Surgery.
UC San Diego’s leadership in the fields of robotics and AI, along with a strong commitment to transferring discoveries for the benefit of society, first drew KatoMed to UC San Diego’s Institute for the Global Entrepreneur (IGE), which is housed at the Jacobs School of Engineering. Now, the startup has licensed intellectual property from campus, was in IGE’s MedTech Accelerator program, and employs several engineering alumni.
“A lot of the cutting edge research is here at UC San Diego. A lot of the most motivated people are here. And so we really wanted to be associated with this incredible institution, and UC San Diego was willing to foster that through connections, licensing intellectual property, and entrepreneurship programming,” said Albert Hill, CEO of KatoMed.
A delegation including the current and incoming presidents of Kyocera (front row, third and fourth from left) joined KatoMed leaders and UC San Diego leadership from the medical school and Institute for the Global Entrepreneur at the Jacobs School of Engineering for a demo.
KatoMed’s core insight is that surgeons should be able to re-establish ground-truth accuracy from just two fluoroscopic X-rays, in eight seconds or less, at any point throughout a procedure. Their first product allows spine surgeons to use common C-arm medical imaging technology, coupled with KatoMed’s proprietary software, to restore accurate navigation within the patient’s spine without the added surgical invasiveness required by other approaches. Their system is capable of correcting for loss of registration—the most common source of error in navigated procedures—while tracking both surgical instruments and patient anatomy to submillimeter levels of accuracy.
Kyocera Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Kyocera Corporation, recently announced an investment in KatoMed, which was the IGE MedTech Accelerator Company of the Year in 2025. While the company’s first product is focused specifically on spine surgery, there are plans to expand its surgical navigation tools to joint, pain, and brain use cases in the future. KatoMed licensed intellectual property developed in the lab of Michael Yip, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering, that may help them achieve these future goals. The company licensed a patent for a haptic sensor for robotic surgery that would allow a surgical robot to differentiate between hard bone and soft tissue. KatoMed also hired two engineering alumni from Yip’s lab, who are now roboticists at the startup, and has brought on Yip as an board advisor.
ReefHaven Ventures, a UC San Diego-alumni led healthcare venture capital fund, is investing in KatoMed alongside Kyocera Ventures. ReefHaven Ventures is an early-stage venture fund investing in healthcare founders building the next generation of MedTech companies. ReefHaven works closely with academic institutions including UC San Diego to identify, fund, and help scale breakthrough innovations from lab to patient impact.
Hill explains the KatoMed technology at the UC San Diego Center for the Future of Surgery.
An innovation powerhouse
KatoMed is not the only startup to take advantage of UC San Diego’s innovation ecosystem. In fact, UC San Diego ranks in the top five nationally for startup creation, with a legacy of launching more than a thousand companies – two-thirds of which are in the life sciences. This is possible in part because of the unique facilities and programs designed to bring engineers and physicians together to deliver real impact where it’s needed, for both UC San Diego affiliates and the broader innovation community.
One such facility is the Center for the Future of Surgery, where Kyocera leaders visited for this KatoMed demo. Located at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, the Center advances surgical techniques by investigating, developing, testing and teaching procedures that are revolutionizing the field of medicine. Since opening in 2011, the CFS has trained more than 40,000 individuals - from residents and medical students to surgeons, nurses and industry partners - making it one of the largest and most comprehensive surgical simulation facilities in the world.
“We are very excited about this innovation, bringing engineering and medicine together and delivering it to patients,” said Barbara Jung, MD, Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of the School of Medicine. “Collaborating with industry at every level is precisely what we do in this space.”
The Institute for the Global Entrepreneur empowers engineers, computer scientists and other innovators to advance discoveries from the lab to the marketplace. The institute is a collaboration between the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and Rady School of Management. IGE’s MedTech Accelerator program is designed to help companies navigate the complex process of bringing medical innovations to market.
Josh Charest, chief technology officer for KatoMed, in the Center for the Future of Surgery demonstrating the company's spine surgery navigation technology.
Leaders from across the UC San Diego innovation ecosystem, including the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur and the Contextual Robotics Institute at the Jacobs School of Engineering, and the School of Medicine, met with the Kyocera delegation.
“The success of KatoMed — a MedTech Accelerator Stage 2 team — and this visit from Kyocera leadership underscore the impact of our MedTech Accelerator program," said Becky Deller, who leads the UC San Diego MedTech Accelerator. "This demonstrates the role that academic institutions like UC San Diego play in the technology commercialization process and in strengthening the broader innovation ecosystem. This is exactly the kind of momentum the MedTech Accelerator aims to generate.”
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