CONUS brings scattered surgical device instructions into one searchable home

A surgeon preparing for a procedure may have the implant available but its instructions buried in a manufacturer’s portal. CONUS is building a shared home for that information, bringing device documentation and hospital protocols into a searchable system organized around the work surgeons need to do.

The Cologne startup introduced its approach in an October 13 YC launch announcement. It says the platform is live in more than 20 European hospitals six months after launch and that it works with manufacturers including Stryker and B. Braun. It is now seeking to expand into the United States.

The product starts with a practical question: which implant systems are available for a particular procedure at this hospital? Surgeons select the procedure, find the relevant systems and access manufacturer instructions, surgical techniques and local protocols. That hospital-specific context matters because a general device catalog cannot, by itself, tell a clinician what their institution uses.

The launch screenshots show how CONUS organizes that material. One view lists implant variants alongside specifications and illustrations of orthopedic plates. Another brings guidance into the same interface. The aim is to reduce the number of separate documents and systems someone needs to consult to understand a device and the instructions associated with it.

CONUS Intelligence adds an AI interface to the structured information. The company says it returns answers with citations to original sources, giving users a route back to the underlying documentation. Its website describes support for research, guidelines and users’ own documents. The announcement does not provide an independent evaluation of answer accuracy, so the presence of citations should not be mistaken for a demonstrated clinical outcome.

Manufacturers are the other side of the product. CONUS gives them a place to make product information available to surgeons and help field teams navigate knowledge across their portfolios. Bringing manufacturer material together with hospital-specific protocols is the central organizational challenge here: the information already exists, but it comes from different institutions with different responsibilities.

The founding team combines AI research and engineering experience. CEO Vincent Paffrath previously researched generative and agentic AI at ETH Zurich and worked on generative AI adoption at Bosch, according to his public YC profile. CPO Maximilian Becker is an industrial engineer whose background includes AI research and engineering at Cleansort. CTO Alexander Schulz worked on electronics and embedded software for biomedical instruments at Miltenyi Biotec.

CONUS says it developed the platform with five chief surgeons. The company is part of Y Combinator’s Fall 2026 batch. Its reported hospital footprint offers an early indication that institutions will use the product, although the launch does not disclose contract values, revenue or measured reductions in time spent finding information.

There is a broader commercial ambition behind the documentation work. CONUS wants its growing knowledge base to eventually help hospitals discover, evaluate and access devices across manufacturers. That remains a stated direction rather than evidence of an operating procurement marketplace. For now, its US expansion is focused on finding medical device companies, orthopedic surgeons and hospital leaders who need the information available before a device can be used.

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