About the Guest
Dr. Sudhir Srivastava is the physician-founder and CEO of SS Innovations (Nasdaq: SSII), a surgical robotics company developing the SSi Mantra platform to make robotic surgery more affordable and accessible worldwide. He brings more than three decades of experience in minimally invasive and robotic cardiac surgery, having served as Director of Robotic Cardiac Surgery at the University of Chicago and founder of the International College of Robotic Surgery. A pioneer in robotic cardiac surgery, Sudhir has performed more than 1,400 robotic procedures, including over 750 beating-heart totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass (TECAB) surgeries.
Interview Summary
Dr. Sudhir Srivastava is the founder, chairman, and CEO of SS Innovations, a U.S. surgical robotics company with headquarters in India. The company’s vision is to make robotic surgery more affordable and accessible worldwide. A pioneer in robotic cardiac surgery, he has performed more than 1,400 robotic procedures, including over 750 beating-heart totally endoscopic coronary artery bypass (TECAB) surgeries, giving him decades of firsthand experience with both the promise and limitations of robotic technology.
In 2011, Sudhir returned to India to launch robotic surgery programs and bring the technology to more patients. He quickly discovered that while robotic surgery had transformed patient care, its high cost placed it beyond the reach of many hospitals and patients. He founded SS Innovations to address that challenge, committing nearly $4.5 million of his own savings before assembling a team of just 10 engineers who initially worked out of his home. The company went on to develop the SSi Mantra surgical robotic system with a homegrown engineering team in India, designed to support multiple specialties, including cardiac surgery, while offering advanced capabilities at a significantly lower cost than leading incumbent systems without compromising performance.
Successive generations of the platform evolved rapidly, with Mantra 3 built from the ground up in just five months. Beyond the robotic platform itself, SS Innovations developed teleproctoring, telesurgery, and a mobile training bus — all part of Sudhir's effort to answer “how do we democratize access?”
Today, SS Innovations has completed more than 10,500 robotic procedures worldwide, including over 170 telesurgeries, and has installed more than 200 systems across multiple countries. The company is generating commercial revenue, has submitted its FDA 510(k) application, is advancing CE mark activities in Europe, and is backed by Intuitive Surgical founder Fred Moll, who also serves as Vice Chairman.
Top Takeaways
Making healthcare affordable is only the first step toward democratizing care. Advanced technology can reach the masses when it’s designed for access while maintaining clinical performance and usability. True democratization requires systematically removing barriers to adoption, whether they stem from cost, geography, patient awareness, or physician training, so innovation can scale beyond major hospital centers.
Treat infrastructure building as part of product development. Revolutionary technology rarely succeeds in isolation. If adoption depends on physician and patient education, access to expertise, or new care delivery models, you can’t wait to build these support functions later — they need to be part of the product strategy itself. Companies that build the surrounding ecosystem alongside their technology are better positioned to reduce adoption friction.
Keep the end user close to the development process. Every layer between engineering and end-user feedback adds time and cost. The fastest teams bring domain experts, engineers, and decision-makers together to solve problems rather than through sequential handoffs, allowing ideas to be challenged, refined, or discarded before they become expensive prototypes.
Match your capital to the stage you're in. Early-stage ideas often require angel investors willing to back conviction before a product or proof exists. Each subsequent raise becomes easier as technical, clinical, and commercial milestones reduce uncertainty. As a company moves from development to commercialization, larger pools of capital are better suited to scale an established business.
Sponsors
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