XRlabs, the Surgical Intelligence company, today announced it has raised $8.4 million in seed funding led by Playground Global, with participation from Eka Ventures. The round will accelerate the development and clinical deployment of XRlabs’ device-agnostic platform, which embeds real-time AI directly into the operating room, providing a co-pilot for the surgical team that enhances visualization, situational awareness, and workflow while preserving the systems hospitals already use.

Founded by practicing neurosurgeon Dr. Ali Haddad and headquartered in London with offices in Palo Alto, XRlabs develops modular software that operates as an external AI layer across existing surgical systems, using computer vision and deep learning to turn live surgical video into real-time intelligence at the point of care. The company’s platform has now been used across more than one hundred surgical cases on three continents.

The platform has already demonstrated integration across the core hardware of the modern operating room, running on 4K 3D surgical scopes and interfacing with navigation systems, and fusing live surgical video, navigation telemetry and pre-operative CT and MRI imaging into a single real-time, anatomy-aware view of the operation. Rather than asking hospitals to replace equipment, XRlabs makes the systems they already own work together intelligently.

“Our conviction is that the operating room is the next frontier for physical AI,” said Dr. Haddad, CEO of XRlabs. “Surgery generates extraordinary data, yet almost none of it becomes intelligence in the moments that matter most. This financing lets us change that at scale, moving Surgical Intelligence from landmark first cases to foundational infrastructure in every operating room.”

The funding follows a year of clinical and commercial momentum, including:

  • First-in-human use of physical AI in cranial neurosurgery, integrated with the ORBEYE™ 4K 3D exoscope, under research conditions.

  • A world first in AI-designed patient-specific implants, used in the successful separation of craniopagus twins in partnership with UK charity Gemini Untwined and documented by BBC News.

  • Named as a Global NVIDIA Partner in robotics, using NVIDIA Jetson Thor™ and NVIDIA Isaac™ for Healthcare to bring low-latency perception, tool tracking and intent-aware automation to surgical scopes.

  • Recognition of XRlabs SIM among TIME’s Best Inventions of 2025, for its pioneering use of AI and extended reality in surgical planning.

The funding will be used to grow the engineering and clinical teams, advance the platform through regulatory pathways in the UK, Europe and the United States, and expand the clinical evidence base across partner institutions on three continents.

The financing is complemented by UK Government support: XRlabs has been awarded a compute allocation on the UK AI Research Resource (AIRR), the UK’s national AI compute infrastructure, which will help accelerate the development, testing and scaling of the company’s AI capabilities.

“The best physical AI companies come from people who’ve experienced a problem in their field firsthand and have the deep expertise to know how to fix it,” said Bruce Leak, General Partner at Playground Global. “XRlabs is built on Dr. Haddad’s years of experience as a practicing neurosurgeon, combined with a team of skilled engineers. That’s the sort of combination we look for: someone who has lived the problem, backed by people who can build the solution.”

Alongside the seed round, XRlabs also announced that Omar Ishrak has joined the company as Chair of its Board of Directors. Ishrak led Medtronic as Chairman and CEO from 2011 to 2020. He previously chaired the board of Intel, and currently serves on the boards of Amgen and Cleveland Clinic.

“The operating room is one of the richest, most underused sources of data in medicine, and the opportunity to turn that data into real-time surgical intelligence is enormous,” said Ishrak. “I’ve spent my career bringing new technology into hospitals, and I see that same potential in Ali and the team at XRlabs. I’m looking forward to helping guide the company as it moves from landmark clinical firsts to a platform used in operating rooms everywhere.”

About XRlabs

XRlabs is the Surgical Intelligence company advancing the integration of AI into the operating room. Founded by a neurosurgeon and headquartered in London with offices in Palo Alto, XRlabs develops modular, device-agnostic software that embeds AI directly within surgical environments through computer vision and deep learning technologies.

Operating as an external AI layer across surgical systems, XRlabs is defining Surgical Intelligence as a new runtime capability in surgery – designed to integrate with existing medical technologies and enhance intraoperative visualization, awareness and workflow. Learn more at xrlabs.ai.

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