bm|t and TGFS Tech­nolo­giegrün­der­fonds Sach­sen have invested a seven-fig­ure sum in the Saxon-Thuringian med­ical robot­ics start-up TEDIRO Health­care Robot­ics GmbH as part of an extended seed financ­ing round. Other investors in this financ­ing round include a busi­ness angel and the medium-sized robot­ics man­u­fac­turer MetraL­abs GmbH Neue Tech­nolo­gien und Sys­teme, from which TEDIRO was spun off.

The idea for the robot was once devel­oped at the Wald­kliniken Eisen­berg — one of the largest orthopaedic clin­ics in Ger­many — together with the Chair of Orthopaedics at Jena Uni­ver­sity Hos­pi­tal, the Ilme­nau Uni­ver­sity of Tech­nol­ogy and MetraL­abs. The team behind TEDIRO, pri­mar­ily soft­ware devel­op­ers and experts in arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and robot­ics, have devel­oped the demon­stra­tor into a med­ical prod­uct in recent years and estab­lished the nec­es­sary busi­ness processes. TEDIRO relies on MetraL­abs’ plat­forms for the robot hard­ware and nav­i­ga­tion and focuses on the devel­op­ment of med­ical appli­ca­tions and sys­tem inte­gra­tion. The robot is cur­rently under­go­ing final test­ing by a med­ical tech­nol­ogy test­ing lab­o­ra­tory. TEDIRO is doing pio­neer­ing work to launch the first mobile robot for var­i­ous ther­a­peu­tic appli­ca­tions that  com­plies with the new EU Med­ical Device Reg­u­la­tion (MDR).

“Our THERY robot helps med­ical and ther­a­peu­tic staff to improve patient mobil­ity regard­less of staff pres­ence,” explains TEDIRO founder Anke May­farth. “As a phys­io­ther­a­pist, I have always wished for a robot that could do repet­i­tive tasks for me. This wish is now becom­ing a reality.”

TEDIRO will use the funds from the financ­ing round to launch the robot as a med­ical prod­uct on the mar­ket shortly and carry out tests in var­i­ous clin­ics. In the future, the robot will cover a vari­ety of other appli­ca­tions — from orthopaedics to neu­rol­ogy and geri­atrics. TEDIRO will also develop these appli­ca­tions together with part­ners in order to posi­tion the robot on the mar­ket as an inno­v­a­tive ther­apy platform.

Olaf Jed­er­s­berger, also an investor in TEDIRO, empha­sizes: “This is a highly for­ward-look­ing approach to solv­ing the pro­nounced short­age of spe­cial­ists in the health­care sec­tor. As COO of Helios, I was look­ing for this kind of solu­tion years ago — and here it is.” How­ever, the sever­ity of the short­age of spe­cial­ists has also sur­prised the found­ing team: “Since we founded TEDIRO, the num­ber of open ther­a­pist posi­tions in clin­ics has con­tin­ued to rise,” explains co-founder Dr. Chris­t­ian Ster­n­itzke. He con­tin­ues: “You can hardly find a clinic where a sig­nif­i­cant pro­por­tion of ther­a­pist posi­tions are not vacant.”

Sören Schus­ter, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of TGFS, adds: “With our invest­ment in TEDIRO Health­care Robot­ics GmbH, we are sup­port­ing a tech­no­log­i­cal mile­stone in the health­care sec­tor. The com­bi­na­tion of advanced robot­ics and ther­apy soft­ware in the THERY mobile robot plat­form has the poten­tial to rev­o­lu­tion­ize ther­apy. We are proud to accom­pany the inno­v­a­tive TEDIRO team on its way to becom­ing a per­ma­nent fix­ture in the field of med­ical robot­ics. We are also delighted to be imple­ment­ing another invest­ment together with bm|t.”

Kevin Reeder, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of bm|t: “With the THERY ther­apy robot, the young com­pany is bring­ing an inno­v­a­tive assis­tant to hos­pi­tals and reha­bil­i­ta­tion clin­ics that will sup­port spe­cial­ist staff in car­ry­ing out rou­tine tasks. The expe­ri­enced team of founders impressed us right from the start with their tech­ni­cal solu­tion to the social chal­lenge of the short­age of skilled work­ers. We are delighted that the robots are being built in Thuringia and that we are part of the TEDIRO financ­ing consortium.”

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TGFS Tech­nolo­giegrün­der­fonds Sach­sen pro­vides tech­nol­ogy-ori­ented founders with equity cap­i­tal for the seed and start-up phase. The fund was first launched in 2008 by the Free State of Sax­ony (includ­ing ERDF fund­ing) and Saxon finan­cial insti­tu­tions and has since sup­ported over 100 start-ups. In 2023, the TGFS started its third fund gen­er­a­tion. The TGFS focuses on young, inno­v­a­tive, tech­nol­ogy-ori­ented com­pa­nies that belong to the ITC, semi­con­duc­tor and microsys­tems tech­nol­ogy, med­ical tech­nol­ogy, life sci­ence, envi­ron­men­tal and energy tech­nol­ogy and new media sec­tors and have their head­quar­ters or busi­ness premises in Saxony.

The com­pany TEDIRO Health­care Robot­ics GmbH is devel­op­ing the world’s first mobile ther­apy and diag­nos­tic robot, which is set to take over a vari­ety of rou­tine activ­i­ties in clin­ics in the future. The ini­tial focus is on AI-sup­ported reha­bil­i­ta­tion. TEDIRO relies on estab­lished robot nav­i­ga­tion tech­nolo­gies and devel­ops the med­ical appli­ca­tions as dig­i­tal ther­apy and diag­nos­tic pro­ce­dures on the robot itself as well as in coop­er­a­tion with partners.

Based in Erfurt, bm|t is a sub­sidiary of Thüringer Auf­baubank and the lead­ing address for ven­ture cap­i­tal and risk cap­i­tal financ­ing in Thuringia. bm|t cur­rently man­ages twelve funds with a total vol­ume of around EUR 445 mil­lion, which invest in inno­v­a­tive com­pa­nies in almost all sec­tors and in all phases of cor­po­rate devel­op­ment — both in the start-up and growth phases or in com­pany suc­ces­sion situations.

MetraL­abs GmbH Neue Tech­nolo­gien und Sys­teme is a pio­neer in mobile ser­vice robot­ics with many years of prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence. In 2007, the com­pany launched the world’s first inter­ac­tive shop­ping robot, which was awarded the Thuringia Research Prize. The medium-sized com­pany focuses on the AMR prod­uct series TORY for inven­tory man­age­ment in retail and CARY for mate­r­ial han­dling in indus­try. The approx­i­mately 800 robots installed world­wide have already cov­ered a total of over one mil­lion kilo­me­ters. They inter­act and com­mu­ni­cate with humans and move com­pletely autonomously and safely, even in dynamic envi­ron­ments, with the help of MetraL­abs’ spe­cially devel­oped and field-proven nav­i­ga­tion software.