A Charlotte medical technology company best known for a non-surgical prostate treatment has struck a deal with a Saudi royal to chase up to $200 million in Middle Eastern investment. Sonablate, headquartered at 10130 Perimeter Parkway, has entered into an agreement with Eleven Ventures, a venture capital fund founded by Saudi Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Saud, to serve as the company's strategic capital partner in the Middle East as it pushes into new international markets.
The agreement, finalized during a signing ceremony in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, calls for Eleven Ventures to help Sonablate seek up to $200 million from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds and private investment firms, according to reporting by the Charlotte Observer. Sonablate and Eleven Ventures are aiming to deploy Sonablate equipment overseas by the end of 2026, and the company is evaluating establishing manufacturing capabilities and a regional headquarters in Saudi Arabia as part of the expansion into the Middle East and North Africa.
A Small Charlotte Firm With a Big Global Footprint
Despite the scale of the funding target, Sonablate remains a relatively lean operation, with 20 employees based in Charlotte and around 90 employees internationally. The privately held company does not disclose financial information, but it has built regulatory approvals in more than 50 countries and serves the Gulf Cooperation Council, a six-nation bloc, according to the same report. Sonablate CEO Richard Yang said the company plans to make medical treatments more precise through artificial intelligence technology as it scales internationally.
Sonablate's roots trace back to the 1990s, when its team partnered with Indiana University School of Medicine in 1990 to build the first Sonablate device designed to treat prostate conditions using sound waves. The company relocated its headquarters from Indianapolis to Charlotte in 2012, and it reorganized as Sonablate Corp. in 2021 after securing seed funding and expanding its distribution network that same year — a restructuring that, per earlier reporting, included over $70 million in combined seed investment and sales distribution commitments led by Canadian firm SCI following regulatory approval in China.
Regulatory Milestones and Growing Medicare Support
Sonablate's core technology uses focused ultrasound to treat prostate tissue without surgery or radiation, and in 2015 it became the first focused ultrasound device approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to destroy targeted prostate tissue. That clearance, granted under request DEN150011, established the regulatory baseline for the company's flagship device in the domestic market. Sonablate followed up with a 2017 FDA 510(k) clearance for an updated device incorporating Tissue Change Monitoring technology, which reduced overall procedure times by up to 40 percent.
The commercial case for the technology strengthened further when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reassigned the procedure's billing code to a new payment classification starting in calendar year 2023, raising hospital outpatient facility payment rates to a national average of $8,557 — a 90 percent increase over 2022 rates. Sonablate technology has now been used in an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 procedures worldwide, and the company points to its scientific research as evidence of the platform's staying power.
Long-Term Study Bolsters the Science
That research got a boost in July 2026, when a 10-year peer-reviewed study published in European Urology provided long-term follow-up data showing that high-intensity focused ultrasound therapy remained effective long term for patients with localized prostate cancer, per the study conducted by Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in London. Sonablate equipment was used in 85 percent of the study's cases, while cryotherapy accounted for 15 percent of cases among the patients tracked. The findings arrive as Sonablate leans on clinical validation to support adoption discussions in new geographic markets.
Ahead of the Eleven Ventures deal, Sonablate expanded its executive leadership team in April 2026, appointing Martin Wade as Chairman of the Board and Brian Murrell as Chief Financial Officer, according to BioSpace. Sonablate says demand is growing for personalized medicine, artificial intelligence and non-invasive therapies, a trend the company is betting will carry its ultrasound platform well beyond the prostate. The firm has AI-powered ultrasound technology and is developing applications for other medical conditions, with its broader ecosystem encompassing five distinct ultrasound modalities — High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound, Low-Intensity Focused Ultrasound, Low-Output Focused Ultrasound, Sonatherm, and SonaTripsy — according to GlobeNewswire.
Why the Gulf Region Is a Target Market
Sonablate technology is being adapted to potentially treat cancer, brain disorders, heart disease and women's health issues, though the company is still finishing testing and regulatory clearance for many of those ultrasound treatments. The push into the Gulf comes as regional health data shows a pressing need: an epidemiological registry analysis of 3,607 prostate cancer cases in Saudi Arabia between 2008 and 2017 found that 31.4 percent of patients presented with distant metastasis and 64.2 percent had poorly differentiated tumors at diagnosis, according to a study indexed on PubMed Central. That pattern of late-stage diagnoses helps explain why Gulf healthcare systems are investing in non-invasive ablation options like Sonablate's.
On the investment side, Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Saud leads the Global Strategic Partnership Committee and will personally guide Sonablate's international growth, engaging governments, investors and strategic partners as the deal moves forward. The prince has a track record of launching diversified ventures under Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 initiatives; in June 2025 he launched Eleven Energy, a marine bunkering subsidiary of Eleven Ventures, headquartered in Riyadh with regional offices in Dammam and Rotterdam. Sonablate and Eleven Ventures say they aim to position AI-powered ultrasound as a leading non-surgical treatment as the companies work toward their shared Q4 2026 deployment target.
