marketing-medtech

**Country:** Netherlands
**Founder:** Chris Hordijk — Founder & CEO
**Background:** other | verified: True — Business / commercial background. Chris Hordijk was trained in business administration and started his career at Unilever in various sales and marketing (customer development) roles before founding MedicalVR (now Surgical Reality). This is a non-clinical, non-engineering background, consistent with the claimed "other" category.
**Stage / fundraise:** Seed-stage SaMD. Originally founded 2017 as MedicalVR/PulmoVR, rebranded to Surgical Reality; product is commercially deployed (350+ surgeries across NL, Germany, US) but still pre-CE medical-device approval. Closed a seed round (LUMO Labs + Graduate Entrepreneur) in Feb 2025 to fund regulatory approval and commercial roll-out. / Closed seed round (LUMO Labs + Graduate Entrepreneur), announced 13 Feb 2025, amount undisclosed; capital allocated to EU medical-device approval and commercial roll-out.
**Regulatory trigger:** Active CE/MDR milestone ahead: company is explicitly "working towards medical device approval within Europe" and securing CE marking, with raised funds allocated to it. Already ISO 13485 and ISO 27001 certified, so a QMS is in place but the SaMD itself is not yet CE-marked. This is exactly the IEC 62304 / MDR technical-file moment OmDev's compliance pipeline supports. https://www.graduate.nl/insights/new-seed-investment-surgical-reality
**Email:** chris@surgicalreality.com (confidence medium) — Published company contact email is info@surgicalreality.com (surgicalreality.com/contact), confirming the @surgicalreality.com domain. Individual staff are indexed on RocketReach under the same @surgicalreality.com domain. chris@surgicalreality.com is a pattern-based guess (first-name@domain), NOT a published address — hence medium confidence. The verified published address is info@surgicalreality.com.
**LinkedIn:** https://www.linkedin.com/company/surgicalreality (company); founder profile: search "Chris Hordijk Surgical Reality" on LinkedIn — Crunchbase profile https://www.crunchbase.com/person/chris-hordijk-1fa3 **Website:** https://www.surgicalreality.com
**Score:** 10 -> Tier B
**Hook:** Chris is a commercial/FMCG founder (ex-Unilever) who has just raised seed capital specifically to push a CT-to-3D SaMD through European medical-device (CE/MDR) approval — while running a thin AI/dev team. That is precisely where OmDev's model fits: a senior dev team plus a dedicated CTO at a fixed monthly price (~3x cheaper than hiring the in-house team), and a compliance engine that produces a signed SOUP register at every build plus requirements-to-code-to-test traceability feeding the IEC 62304/MDR technical file (OmDev doesn't certify, but builds the evidence the auditors want). For a non-technical founder spending fresh capital on exactly this milestone, OmDev turns the CE bottleneck into a managed, evidenced deliverable.

---

## Founder & background
Chris Hordijk is Founder & CEO of Surgical Reality (founded 2017 as MedicalVR/PulmoVR). He is a non-technical, commercial founder: a business-administration / international-business degree (HU Utrecht) and marketing & finance studies (OMNES Education), then a career start at Unilever in sales & marketing before founding the company. He did a Le Wagon coding bootcamp in 2019, but the profile is FMCG/commercial, not engineering. ([Crunchbase](https://www.crunchbase.com/person/chris-hordijk-1fa3))
Team is small: Chris plus "Mike and Amir" and a couple of AI engineers per public profiles. ([Graduate](https://www.graduate.nl/insights/new-seed-investment-surgical-reality))

## Funding & momentum
Closed a seed investment from LUMO Labs and Graduate Entrepreneur, announced 13 Feb 2025 (amount undisclosed), to fund European regulatory approval and commercial roll-out. ([Silicon Canals](https://siliconcanals.com/amsterdam-based-surgical-reality-raises-funds/) · [Graduate](https://www.graduate.nl/insights/new-seed-investment-surgical-reality))
Real traction: 350+ surgeries supported across the Netherlands, Germany and the US, with Erasmus MC research showing improved surgical plans in >50% of cases vs CT alone. ([Silicon Canals](https://siliconcanals.com/amsterdam-based-surgical-reality-raises-funds/))

## Product & regulatory
SaMD surgical-planning platform that auto-converts 2D CT scans into patient-specific, fully-labelled interactive 3D models (e.g. a whole-lung model from a pulmonary CT in ~10 min), with intra-operative deformation simulation; co-developed with Erasmus MC. ([Surgical Reality](https://www.surgicalreality.com/))
Regulatory trigger is live: the company is explicitly "working towards medical device approval within Europe" / CE marking and is spending the new capital on it. A QMS exists (ISO 13485 + ISO 27001), but the device itself is pre-CE — i.e. the IEC 62304 software lifecycle and MDR technical file are the gating work now. ([Graduate](https://www.graduate.nl/insights/new-seed-investment-surgical-reality))

## Pain & buying signals
Non-technical commercial founder + thin AI/dev team + fresh capital earmarked specifically for the CE/MDR milestone = a real squeeze between shipping features and producing audit-grade compliance evidence. The CT-to-3D AI pipeline raises the engineering and documentation bar further. Note this is a 2017 company (not <24 months old), which caps the "early" score, but the recent rebrand, fresh seed, and pre-CE status keep buying intent high.

**Why OmDev fits:** OmDev gives Chris a senior dev team plus a dedicated CTO at a fixed monthly price (~3x cheaper than building that team in-house, client owns the code) — and, critically, a compliance engine that emits a signed SOUP register at every build and full requirements-to-code-to-test traceability that drops straight into the IEC 62304/MDR technical file. OmDev doesn't certify, but it manufactures the evidence the Notified Body wants, turning the exact CE bottleneck he just raised money to clear into a managed, evidenced deliverable.

---
**Sources:** https://www.crunchbase.com/person/chris-hordijk-1fa3 · https://siliconcanals.com/amsterdam-based-surgical-reality-raises-funds/ · https://www.graduate.nl/insights/new-seed-investment-surgical-reality · https://ttt-ai.nl/portfolio/medicalvr · https://capital-riesgo.es/en/articles/lumo-labs-and-graduate-entrepreneur-invest-in-dutch-startup-surgical-reality-for-advanced-3d-technology-for-surgeons/ · https://www.surgicalreality.com/ · https://www.surgicalreality.com/contact