Digitizing the Last Analog Frontier in Eye Care: Why Ventech Invested in Custom Surgical

19 February 2026, Ventech led the €3.5M Pre-Series A financing round of Custom Surgical, a Munich-based company building the data infrastructure for the next generation of AI-driven ophthalmology.  

Let's dive deep into who they are, and why we invested. 

For decades, ophthalmology has been one of the most technologically advanced medical specialties. While retinal imaging has gone fully digital, much of everyday eye care still relies on hardware-first tools designed decades ago. As a result, an estimated 90% of eye-care consultation data remains in the analog world. 

Custom Surgical enables hardware-agnostic, affordable data capture and AI-powered insights for eye care professionals worldwide.   

Its platform allows ophthalmologists not only to seamlessly record and store clinical images in a single system, but also to leverage this data to attract new patients, collaborate with peers on complex cases, and delegate routine workflows to assistants — ultimately making eye care more efficient, connected, and scalable.

Why This Matters Now? Some Impressive Numbers

1. Booming eye care demand meets shrinking supply. 

While the huge eye care need is driven by an ageing population, workforce productivity losses due to visual impairments could exceed $400 billion annually! Yet healthcare systems are already under strain, facing significant workforce shortages that make scaling access to quality eye care more urgent than ever.

2. Real-world evidence (RWE) is becoming core infrastructure.

Pharma, medtech, payers, and regulators increasingly rely on real-world evidence to evaluate treatments, optimise outcomes, and reduce costs. The RWE market alone is expected to reach $4.6 billion by 2030.

3. AI in ophthalmology is ready to expand.

AI adoption in eye care has so far been largely limited to retinal screening. The AI in ophthalmology market is projected to grow at nearly 37% CAGR, reaching $1.36 billion by 2030.

More on the "Pain": The Invisible Bottleneck - Data in Ophthalmology

Unlike radiology and its DICOM format, ophthalmology never adopted a data exchange format to easily share consultation data across IT systems, devices ,and among peers. 

Clinical data remains fragmented across devices, manufacturers, and care settings. Although anterior segment examinations account for the majority of patient visits, they are never captured in a digitally structured way. 

This fragmentation creates three systemic issues: 

1. Hindered clinical productivity & care 

Surgeons spend up to half their time on consultations, when surgeries generate more than 70% of their revenues. Meanwhile, long patient waiting lists are common in ophthalmology.

2. Limited usage of RWE

High-value treatments such as cataract surgery, glaucoma procedures, or refractive surgery lack longitudinal, real-world datasets to establish benchmarks, compare procedures and suggest better treatment options value treatments such as cataract surgery, glaucoma procedures, or refractive surgery lack longitudinal, real-world datasets  value treatments such as cataract surgery, glaucoma procedures, or refractive surgery lack longitudinal, real world datasets.

3. A stalled AI ecosystem

While AI in radiology has flourished, AI in ophthalmology remains largely focused on retinal diseases,  primarily because this is where digital imaging and structured data have historically been available.

Custom Surgical was founded to unlock this bottleneck.

A Pragmatic Beachhead: Digitise First, AI Later  

Rather than starting with AI, Custom Surgical took a more grounded approach, one that reflects the team’s pragmatism and unique market insights.

The company began by building hardware-agnostic digitisation accessories that retrofit existing slit lamps and microscopes—equipment that often remains in use for over 20 years. These solutions convert analog consultations and surgeries into high-quality images and videos at a price point accessible to small and mid-sized practices worldwide.

But hardware alone was never the endgame.

At the core of the company sits MicroREC Connect, a cloud-based data management platform that stores, structures, tags, and enriches ophthalmic data across devices and manufacturers. More than a traditional Picture Archiving and Communication System or a simple storage layer, MicroREC Connect is similar to a vertical Customer Relationship Management system and Electronic Health Record for eye care.

This low-friction combination of hardware and unifying software has enabled Custom Surgical to build one of the largest and fastest-growing proprietary datasets in ophthalmology:

•    50,000+ images and 40,000 surgical videos 

•    300 terabytes of data

•    Contributions from 3,000+ doctors across 80+ countries  

  •   20,000 new data points added every month

Next chapter: From Data Infrastructure to AI Economics

With thousands of practices already digitised, Custom Surgical is now entering its next chapter. 

The company plans to introduce AI-based triage software designed to assist healthcare professionals—not replace doctors—by ensuring the right images are captured and patients are efficiently referred. This approach directly addresses two acute bottlenecks: the misallocation of specialist time and long patient waiting lists. 

The logic is compelling: 

o Patients benefit from earlier detection and better monitoring, reducing the unchecked progression of diseases that impact quality of life and productivity.

o Healthcare systems know that prevention is more cost-effective than cure.

o AI frees up surgeons’ time for higher value procedures where track record and human touch matters most.

Why Ventech Invested

At Ventech, we look for companies that build foundational infrastructure. 

Custom Surgical fits this thesis precisely: 

o It addresses a structural inefficiency in a large and growing market;

o It has built a defensible data moat before launching AI; 

o It combines capital-efficiency with rapidly growing global adoption;

o It is led by a team that blends first-hand field experience with a strong technical background,  eabling deep integration into customer workflows hand field experience with a strong technical background, enabling deep integration into customer workflows.   

Last but not least, we are excited to partner alongside leading industry experts as co-investors, most notably Zeiss, whose market access and technological expertise bring significant value to Custom Surgical. 

With a clear ambition to become the data standard for ophthalmology, Custom Surgical sits at the intersection of hardware, software, data, and AI—where the most enduring value in healthcare can be created. 

Bravo to the founders and the entire team!