Surgical Data Science Collective

What Surgical Data Science Collective does

Surgical Data Science Collective (SDSC), legally Surgeon's Data Science Collective, Inc. (EIN 88-1233001), is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered at 2000 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC, founded by neurosurgeon Daniel A. Donoho, MD to apply artificial intelligence to surgical training and patient outcomes. The organization operates the Surgical Video Platform (SVP), a cloud-based system hosted on AWS that combines secure video storage, AI-powered computer vision analytics (tool detection, tool usage heatmaps and timelines, surgical phase identification, and benchmarking), and collaboration features (timestamped comments, sharing, real-time feedback) for surgeons, residents, and researchers. Sub-processors include Roboflow for video annotation and ClearML for AI training orchestration, and a Researcher API exposes analytics data to select institutional partners.

SDSC's business model is non-commercial: the platform is offered free of charge to surgeons, researchers, clinicians, and students, with the organization funded by donors aligned with its global surgery mission rather than by platform fees or venture capital. Its go-to-market is community-led, anchored by the SDSC Fellows' Research Community, a Clinical Leadership Committee, content marketing, conferences (including Neurosurgery 2024 in Palo Alto), and a broad partnership network that includes Stanford, UCSF, Mayo Clinic, UCL, UHN, University of Toronto, and global health alliances such as NeuroKids (ETV hydrocephalus), AllSafe, and G4 Alliance. The platform is HIPAA and SOC2 compliant, designed with CDN-backed low-bandwidth accessibility for low- and middle-income country adoption.

The customer base spans practicing surgeons, medical residents and students, medical researchers and data scientists, and medical institutions, with primary use cases in surgical training, technique sharing, performance benchmarking, and research collaboration. SDSC has scaled to 540+ surgeons and 34,800+ surgical videos across 61 countries (with 270+ active users across 59 countries reported separately), backed by a distributed team that includes engineering, AI/data science, clinical consulting (e.g., Stanford neurosurgery resident Dhiraj Pangal, MD), partnerships, and operations functions.

Name

Surgical Data Science Collective

Legal name

Surgeon's Data Science Collective, Inc.

Website

https://surgicalvideo.io

Company type

Private

Founded year

2022

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Surgical Data Science Collective is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit operating the free Surgical Video Platform, an AI-powered cloud platform that analyzes surgical procedure videos for tool detection, phase identification, and benchmarking, serving surgeons, residents, researchers, and medical institutions globally.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

AI Surgical Video Analytics Platform

NAICS

Software Publishers (513210), Scientific Research and Development Services (5417)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

SaMD – Imaging & Signal Analysis (AI/ML) (HLACANAG)

akta.pro secondary industries

Medical Imaging AI (HDAAAEAH), Quality, Peer Review & Compliance Tools (MQSA/ACR/QA) (HLACALAL)

Keywords

• Surgical video analytics
• AI surgical training
• Computer vision surgery
• Surgical performance assessment
• Surgical data science

Headquarters

HQ city

Washington DC

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Platform Services (Free): As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, SDSC provides its Surgical Video Platform free of charge to surgeons, researchers, and clinicians. The organization is funded by donors who believe in the vision of making surgery safer through AI. Revenue is generated through donations rather than platform fees.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Surgical Data Science Collective (SDSC) develops and operates the Surgical Video Platform (SVP), a cloud-based software platform that uses computer vision, deep learning, and machine learning to analyze surgical procedure videos. The platform provides AI-powered tool detection, phase identification, tool presence heatmaps, timelines, and benchmarking analytics, enabling surgeons, researchers, and clinicians to upload, annotate, share, and benchmark surgical videos for training and research. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, SDSC provides the platform free of charge to users and funds operations through donations.

Product overview

Surgical Data Science Collective operates as a nonprofit and offers the Surgical Video Platform (SVP) as its primary product—a unified cloud-based platform for secure surgical video storage, AI-powered analytics, and global collaboration. SVP incorporates computer vision capabilities for tool detection and procedure phase identification, and connects to the Researcher API for programmatic partner access. SDSC also maintains partnerships such as NeuroKids, which leverages the platform for global surgical training on ETV procedures. The platform is HIPAA and SOC2 certified and is designed to serve surgeons, researchers, and institutions worldwide.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Surgical Video Platform: A comprehensive cloud-based platform for secure surgical video storage, AI-driven analytics, collaboration tools, and global expert networking for surgical research and training.
• SVP

Products and services

• Surgical Video Platform (SVP) A cloud-based surgical video platform providing secure storage, AI-powered analytics (tool detection, phase identification, heatmaps, benchmarking), and collaboration features (timestamped comments, sharing, real-time feedback) for surgical training and research. The platform is offered free of charge and is HIPAA and SOC2 certified.
• Researcher API A partner-facing API that enables valued third-party research partners to send and receive data and access API Data for internal research purposes, with access managed through order forms and subject to technical documentation, usage guidelines, and call volume limits.

Quantifiable outcome

• Platform reaches 61 countries with 540+ surgeons
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

AI capability5 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

22 partnerships are on record, tiered core and secondary.

• NeuroKidscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerNeuroKids is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit global alliance of surgeons performing ETV procedures for hydrocephalus. SDSC partners with NeuroKids building models for optimized training and treatment. NeuroKids surgeons have uploaded 122 videos of ETV procedures and 1K+ hours of surgical video to the SDSC platform. CEO Derek Johnson endorsed SDSC's vision to leverage technology and AI to scale education and support to surgeons worldwide.
• Stanford UniversitycoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerStanford University partners with SDSC to offer specialized features including custom networks within SVP for better collaboration and training on procedures, and live AI analytics during cadaver dissections.
• University of California San Francisco (UCSF)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerUCSF is part of SDSC's partner network of surgical data scientists and supporters. The institution collaborates on research and training initiatives with SDSC.
• University Health Network (UHN)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerUHN is part of SDSC's partner network of surgical data scientists and supporters, collaborating on research and training initiatives.
• Mayo CliniccoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMayo Clinic is part of SDSC's partner network of surgical data scientists and supporters, contributing to research and training collaboration.
• University College London (UCL)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerUCL collaborates with SDSC on surgical AI research and training, with Dr. Hani Marcus from NHNN, UCL involved in SDSC activities.
• University of OklahomacoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerUniversity of Oklahoma is part of SDSC's partner network. Dr. Chris Graffeo received a grant from Spanish Neurosurgical Society (SENEC) for AI in gliomas with SDSC playing a pivotal role.
• North American Skull Base SocietysecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of SDSC's expanding partner network of surgical data scientists and supporters.
• Global Surgical AI CollaborativesecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of SDSC's expanding partner network of surgical data scientists and supporters.
• AllSafesecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerSDSC works with AllSafe to drive meaningful change and share life-saving knowledge globally.
• G4 AlliancesecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerSDSC works with G4 Alliance to drive meaningful change and share life-saving knowledge globally.
• Ohio State UniversitysecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of SDSC's partner network of surgical data scientists and supporters.
• Children's National HospitalsecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of SDSC's partner network of surgical data scientists and supporters.
• Clinical and Translational Science InstitutesecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of SDSC's partner network of surgical data scientists and supporters.
• Washington UniversitysecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of SDSC's partner network of surgical data scientists and supporters.
• University of TorontosecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of SDSC's partner network. Dr. Ruth Lau-Rodriguez from University of Toronto uses SDSC for laparoscopic surgery research.
• University of MichigansecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of SDSC's partner network. Dr. Grace Kim from University of Michigan is involved in SDSC activities.
• Purdue UniversitysecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of SDSC's partner network. Dr. Fiona Kolbinger from Purdue University uses SDSC for surgical video analysis.
• University of South CarolinasecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of SDSC's expanding partner network of surgical data scientists and supporters.
• California Institute of Technology (Caltech)secondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of SDSC's expanding partner network of surgical data scientists and supporters.
• University of TennesseesecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of SDSC's expanding partner network of surgical data scientists and supporters.
• University of Medicine and Dentistry of New JerseysecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerPart of SDSC's expanding partner network of surgical data scientists and supporters.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Theator: Theator is a surgical video intelligence platform using AI to analyze procedure footage for performance assessment and training — a directly comparable offering to SDSC's Surgical Video Platform for tool detection and phase identification.
• Proximie: Proximie provides a telepresence and AI-augmented surgical collaboration platform that enables remote proctoring, video recording, and post-procedure review — closely aligned with SDSC's mission to enable many-to-many, bidirectional surgical knowledge transfer.
• Caresyntax: Caresyntax offers a surgical analytics and AI platform that captures OR video and data to benchmark performance and improve outcomes — a directly comparable surgical video analytics and benchmarking competitor to SDSC.
• Surgical Safety Technologies: Surgical Safety Technologies (OR Black Box) provides OR video capture and AI analytics for safety and quality improvement — a directly comparable analytics competitor to SDSC focused on OR-wide video and event detection rather than procedure-specific training.

Emerging players

• Activ Surgical: Activ Surgical is developing AI-driven intraoperative visualization and analytics to enhance surgical decision-making — overlapping with SDSC's computer vision approach to surgical video, but with a focus on real-time intraoperative guidance.
• ExplORer Surgical: ExplORer Surgical provides a surgical workflow and collaboration platform with procedure video and team coordination features — adjacent to SDSC with overlap on collaborative procedure documentation, but more focused on intraoperative workflow than AI analytics.
• Proprio Vision: Proprio is developing AI-driven surgical visualization and data capture for intraoperative guidance and analytics — an emerging player with partial overlap with SDSC's computer-vision-based approach to surgical performance insight.

Broad incumbents

• Touch Surgery (Medtronic): Touch Surgery, now part of Medtronic, is a surgical training and procedure video simulation platform — a broader incumbent with overlapping surgical video and training capabilities, backed by Medtronic's substantial distribution and capital.
• Intuitive Surgical: Intuitive Surgical, maker of the da Vinci system, is rapidly embedding AI-based surgical analytics and case insights into its installed robotics base — a large incumbent whose bundled surgical AI competes with SDSC's standalone analytics proposition.
• Stryker: Stryker's surgical equipment and imaging business includes AI-enabled surgical visualization and analytics — a broad incumbent with overlapping capabilities as part of a larger medtech portfolio rather than as a standalone surgical AI platform.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/surgical-data-science-collective

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles9 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Surgical Data Science Collective