San Sebastián biotech Deneb Medical has closed a €14,7 million Series A led by the Spanish government, with participation from Kutxa Fundazioa. The money goes to Izar, a system combining robotics, photonics and artificial intelligence to automate spinal surgery. The pitch is not to assist the surgeon but to automate the procedure outright. Deneb claims “submillimetre” precision and argues that removing human intervention cuts surgical risk while allowing treatment to be tailored to each patient’s anatomy.
It is an ambitious position in a field where most existing systems stop at assisted navigation or instrument guidance. Spinal surgery leaves an unusually narrow margin for error — pedicle screw placement, for instance, plays out in millimetres alongside nerve structures. That is precisely why it has attracted so much automation effort, and why the bar for proving results sits so high.
The Spanish government is the largest of the three participants. Its stated rationale points to a “commitment to deploying advanced technologies and digitalisation in healthcare to expand its effectiveness.” Kutxa Fundazioa framed its involvement as part of its support for the region’s industrial and technological development, consistent with the Gipuzkoan foundation’s long-standing ties to the local productive base. Also, a US multinational holds a stake in the company, which Deneb says will help integrate Izar into global surgical platforms and open access to established commercial networks. For a 22-person outfit, that route to market may prove more decisive than the capital itself.
The round secures Deneb Medical’s headquarters in Donostia and will fund headcount growth from its current 22 employees. The company has not detailed its regulatory timeline or where Izar sits in clinical validation — two gaps worth noting when gauging how far the system is from an operating theatre.
Fifteen million places the round around the 36th percentile by size. It is not a raise that turns heads on volume, and it reads accordingly: capital to consolidate structure and push development forward, not to go to market. A government leading a medtech round of this kind says something about where Spanish public investment in health is currently pointing. And directing that money at a system built to remove the surgeon from the surgical gesture, rather than merely support it, marks a meaningful step beyond what hospitals have installed today.
Deneb calls it “a new paradigm in spinal surgery.” Getting from that claim to clinical practice runs through trials, regulatory approval and the slow buy-in of surgical teams themselves, which in this field tends to be the bottleneck nobody plans for. With €14,7 million and a multinational on the cap table, the company has room to try it from San Sebastián.
About Deneb Medical
Founded around 2017 by Aritz Lazkoz and Juan Arregui, Deneb Medical is a medtech company headquartered in San Sebastián (Donostia), Spain, specialising in laser-based technologies for precision surgery. It employs 22 people.
Its system, Izar, combines robotics, photonics and artificial intelligence to automate spinal surgery, using real-time tissue identification to guide pedicle screw placement with what the company describes as submillimetre precision. Izar is still in development and has not yet reached the market.
In September 2026, Deneb Medical closed a €14.7 million capital increase. Spain’s SETT, the public technology-transformation body attached to the Ministry for Digital Transformation, contributed €7.2 million from EU Next Generation funds; Kutxa Fundazioa put in €2.5 million; a US multinational also took a stake.https://www.denebmedical.com/