Building the Tesla of Surgical Robots
Mark Pavlyukovskyy and Hendrik Remigereau host TechMates, the NZVC podcast. The guest on this episode is Nick Damiano, Co-Founder of Andromeda Surgical, and it went out on 22 September 2025. It covers the NZVC portfolio company Andromeda Surgical.
- Guest
- Nick Damiano, Co-Founder of Andromeda Surgical
- Date
- 22 September 2025
- Companies
- Andromeda Surgical
- Watch
- YouTube
- Listen
- Spotify
Nick Damiano, a Bay Area deep-tech founder with New Zealand ties and two-time Y Combinator alum, built medtech across pacemakers, remote operating-room support, and implantables before co-founding Andromeda to bring autonomous surgical robots to market. The robots are software-first, learn like self-driving cars, and start with urology and HoLEP, guided on an iPad. He covers why medtech financing is broken, co-founder pitfalls, what the FDA cares about, and why New Zealand works as a clinical launchpad.
- Andromeda: software-first surgical robots with iPad control.
- HoLEP and Google Maps for the prostate to de-risk learning.
- FDA pragmatism, New Zealand fast-track launches, and global access.
- Business model: no disposables, subscription plus partnerships.
Companies in this episode
Andromeda Surgical, surgical robotics, medtech, urology, FDA, Y Combinator, autonomous systems