Vexev’s VxWave: Sydney Startup’s Autonomous Ultrasound Robot Hits Clinical Milestone

Backed by Blackbird, Sydney’s Vexev has clinically validated a world-first autonomous ultrasound robot, performing specialist scans at the press of a button.

A New Era for Vascular Imaging in Dialysis Clinics

For decades, ultrasound scanning has relied on skilled vascular specialists, a workflow both costly and limited by human availability. Now, an Australian medtech startup is changing that.

Sydney-based Vexev has achieved a significant milestone in the field of medical imaging, demonstrating that autonomous robotic ultrasound can deliver specialist-grade results in real clinical environments. The company’s VxWave system, a robotic platform powered by advanced ultrasound technology and AI, successfully completed a landmark clinical trial across dialysis clinics in the United States.

The system’s promise is simple yet transformative: a press-of-a-button scan that performs vascular imaging without requiring a human sonographer that allows existing dialysis staff to conduct scans with clinical precision.

Inside the VxWave System: Robotics, AI and Ultrasound Combined

Vexev’s VxWave technology combines robotics, precision ultrasound and machine intelligence to automate complex vascular imaging tasks. Unlike conventional ultrasound systems, which depend heavily on operator expertise and manual probe handling, VxWave performs its scans autonomously, mapping blood vessels with high consistency and accuracy.

This automation is designed to address a growing challenge in healthcare: limited access to vascular imaging specialists, particularly in dialysis centers where early detection of vessel narrowing or access issues is critical to patient outcomes. The system’s autonomous capability means that dialysis nurses and technicians, rather than specialized sonographers, can now perform complex vascular scans safely and effectively, potentially reducing wait times, standardizing results and lowering costs.

The CANSCAN Trial: Results and What They Mean ?

Vexev’s achievement is grounded in data. The company’s CANSCAN trial, conducted in partnership with US Renal Care, evaluated the VxWave system across three dialysis clinics in Texas. The results were striking:

• 94% scan completion rate
• 100% data adequacy rate across 115 patients with severe kidney disease

Equally significant was who performed the scans: not vascular specialists, but existing dialysis staff using VxWave’s automated system. Despite this shift in operator profile, the scans achieved the gold standard of clinical adequacy, validating the system’s autonomous capability in real-world healthcare settings. Vexev’s co-founder John Carroll described the breakthrough in an interview with Capital Brief: “We genuinely now have the most advanced autonomous robotic ultrasound system in the world.”

The trial’s success marks one of the first large-scale validations of robotic ultrasound automation in a clinical workflow, a step that could redefine how imaging is delivered across healthcare settings.

From Sydney to Texas: Startup Backed by Blackbird Hits Global Stage

Founded in Sydney, Vexev has rapidly emerged as one of Australia’s most innovative medtech startups. The company is backed by Blackbird Ventures, one of the country’s most prominent venture firms known for supporting deep-tech and life sciences startups. Vexev’s work bridges both hardware and AI which is an intersection often seen as difficult to commercialize due to regulatory and technical complexity. Yet, with its clinical trial success in the US, the company has proven that autonomous medical robotics can be developed and validated from Australia and deployed globally.

This milestone also positions Vexev among a growing wave of AI-powered medical imaging companies aiming to democratize access to advanced diagnostics, particularly in areas with clinician shortages.

Why This Matters: Imaging Access, Standardisation and Operational Efficiency!

Vascular imaging is vital for dialysis patients, whose treatment relies on healthy blood vessel access. Traditionally, this requires specialized ultrasound technicians or radiologists, a constraint that limits access, especially in regional and lower-resource facilities. By automating this process, Vexev’s system addresses three key challenges:

• Access: Expands ultrasound capability to clinics lacking specialists.
• Standardization: Ensures consistent image quality and reduces operator-dependent variability.
• Efficiency: Frees clinical staff to focus on patient care while improving throughput.

If scaled, this approach could have wide-ranging implications beyond dialysis, including cardiovascular screening, peripheral vascular disease detection and surgical planning. The idea of autonomous imaging aligns with a larger healthcare trend: combining robotics and AI to extend specialist expertise without increasing labor costs. Rather than replacing clinicians, systems like VxWave act as intelligent extensions, augmenting human staff and ensuring high-quality imaging even in high-volume settings.

What’s Next for Vexev ? Regulatory Steps, Adoption and Market Roll-out

Following the success of the CANSCAN trial, Vexev plans to advance regulatory clearances and expand clinical adoption of its VxWave platform. The company’s next phase will focus on bringing the system to more dialysis clinics in the US while preparing for potential expansion into other imaging domains.

While Vexev has not yet disclosed specific rollout timelines, its results position it well for continued regulatory engagement with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other international bodies.For now, the company’s achievement represents not just a milestone for Australian medtech, but a meaningful proof point for autonomous healthcare technology worldwide.

Final Thoughts: A Quiet Revolution in Imaging

Ultrasound remains one of the world’s most widely used diagnostic tools, yet it’s also one of the most skill-dependent. Vexev’s achievement marks a turning point, demonstrating that autonomy in medical imaging is not a distant concept but a proven reality.

With its clinically validated VxWave system, the Sydney startup has joined a select group of innovators showing that robotics and AI can safely take over tasks once considered the sole domain of human specialists. If widely adopted, systems like VxWave could make high-quality ultrasound scans as routine and as effortless as checking a patient’s vital signs.