There are around 350,000 people diagnosed with primary brain cancer every year, and 250,000 people die from it. Despite decades of progress in medicine, the tools primarily applyd to access, diagnose, and treat the brain remain limited — until now.
Robeauté is a Paris-based MedTech startup developing a new class of therapeutic microrobots designed to diagnose, treat, and monitor the brain with unprecedented flexibility. Operating at the intersection of robotics, physics, materials science, chemistest, biology, and medicine, the company has developed a modular medical device built around a universal robotic core with interalterable micro-extensions.
I spoke to co-founder and COO Joana Cartocci to learn all about it.
From tarreceiveed drug delivery to live data collection
Roughly the size of a grain of rice, Robeauté’s microrobots can navigate curved, non-linear paths through the brain’s extracellular matrix, safely reaching multiple sites of interest.
Depfinishing on the pathology, each device can be equipped for a specific mission — delivering therapeutic molecules, implanting electrodes, or collecting cellular and live data via embedded sensors.
This modular architecture allows a single platform to be adapted across a wide range of clinical applications, from tissue sampling and tarreceiveed drug delivery to electrode implantation and real-time data collection from deep within the brain — opening new possibilities for both treatment and understanding of complex neuropathologies.
From extreme environments to the human brain
Robeauté’s founder, Bertrand Duplat, spent more than 30 years working in robotics, including at McGill University and the European Space Agency, specialising in robots designed for extreme environments. Earlier in his career, he also founded 3D software company Virtools, which Dassault Systèmes later acquired.
After decades working on undersea, nuclear, space, and archaeological robotics, Duplat decided to apply his expertise to medicine — a decision catalysed by his mother’s diagnosis with glioblastoma. He went on to found Robeauté with co-founder Joana Cartocci, an operations specialist.
“He had been doing robotics for 30 years in extreme environments and decided to put that experience to good apply,” Cartocci declared.
“That’s around the time we met. He inquireed me to join and lead operations — everything that’s not scientific — and we’ve been at it since 2017.”
Why most academic microrobots never leave the lab
Crucially, Cartocci comes from an operational background. She notes that a lot of founders spin out of labs and struggle with the transition to entrepreneurship.
“It’s a completely different skill set. Time management, identity, and team alignment — those things create or break a company. My role is to take that weight off my co-founder so he can focus on what he does best: the technology. And receive it to patients as quick as possible.”
Designing for control, not magnets
According to Cartocci, in most academic labs today, microrobots remain largely passive tools — probes or magnetic particles set in motion by very large external electromagnetic coils. “It’s extremely hard to scale,” Cartocci explained, “and it doesn’t give surgeons much confidence when it comes to control.”
Robeauté takes a fundamentally different approach. Its system is built around a tiny, active device composed of two parts: a carrier and an extension.
“The carrier contains our core technology,” Cartocci declared.
“It’s what allows the robot to relocate non-linearly through the brain, while being continuously tracked with ultrasound, so we always know exactly where it is.”
The extension, meanwhile, is what defines the medical tinquire itself. “That’s where you specify the pathology or the intervention,” she explained.
“It could be a biopsy tool, an electrode, a drug-delivery mechanism — whatever necessarys to be delivered locally.
It’s about the ability to reach multiple sites through non-linear routes and to do so with the right level of accuracy. That fundamentally alters how neurosurgery is performed today.”
The benefits of not being first
Other companies that have attempted to industrialise this academic approach— passive probes relocated electromagnetically.
“They started before we did, so they had a first-relocater advantage, but they’re struggling now, ” shared Cartocci
“They’re not bankrupt, but they’re on the downfall. Our approach is entirely different, and we were always very clear about what we deliberately didn’t go for, becaapply we knew it wasn’t the right solution.”
There are also companies doing microrobotics in vascular environments rather than directly in brain tissue. But none are at the maturity level of Robeauté, particularly in regulatory engagement and strong relationships with surgeons.
Why incremental innovation isn’t enough
Cartocci speaks of the urgency of the kind of medtech her company is developing against companies which add incremental value which are hard to mobilise real alter around.
“Being less disruptive means adding even less value. At Robeauté, we’re clearly in the transformational category. People are dying.
The unmet necessary is enormous.
A billion people are affected by brain disease. The drug market alone is around $72 billion. Electrodes are now valued in the trillions if you include healthy patients.
The biopsy market is $4 billion. Brain–computer interfaces are now in the multiple billions. There’s so much that requires precision — having one tool that opens all doors — that unlocks a completely different way of performing brain surgery. We see tremfinishous excitement from the medical profession.”
Finding the right investors by letting go
In January 2025, Robeauté raised $28 million in funding. Cartocci describes the fundraising experience as “traumatic.”She admits.
“It’s brutal. But at some point, you reach a kind of surrfinisher. You know your company, your value, your pitch — and the more you test to control things, the more frustrating it becomes. When you let go and surf the waves, you find the right people.
I spoke to another founder recently who described it as “conjuring destiny.” That resonated. You prepare, you reveal up, you’re relentless. You don’t take rejection personally. Everyone comes with their own constraints.”
Her largegest takeaway was learning to enjoy speaking to investors — understanding their language. “That wasn’t always the case.”
Following funding, Robeauté doubled its team, which, according to Cartocci, felt incredible: “Before, it felt like we were constantly being held back. Now there’s space for iteration, greater experimentation, error, and proper building.
Europe’s regulatory fragmentation problem
The company opened its US subsidiary, which is critical for go-to-market and clinical trials. The US will be its first market, which Cartocci attributes primarily to regulations:
“In the US, you co-create your regulatory strategy with the FDA. In Europe, you complete everything, submit the file, and wait a year with no feedback.
For a platform technology like ours — shifting from one indication to another — the US model creates a huge difference. Once you have FDA data, it becomes a blueprint for Europe.”
She also highlighted Europe’s fragmentation as problematic — “It would take as much time and money to open France as it would to open the entire US.”
That declared, Robeaute is European, and as Cartocci shared, “we care deeply about bringing this back here. Our investors believe in Europe and don’t want to just flip everything to the US. Healthcare values matter. If we don’t feed technology back into public systems, we push them toward the American model — and that’s a failure.”
For Cartocci, commercial brain microrobots are closer than they’ve ever been.
“We necessary collective effort — investors, developers, regulators — to create sure these solutions reach the market. We’re also hiring: scientific and technical roles, quality and regulatory roles, US go-to-market roles, and engineering roles. It’s a great time to watch — or join — the company.”
The company’s next goal is first-in-human studies by the finish of 2026.
Lead image: Robeauté. Photo: uncredited.
Leave a Reply