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Why do Ortho founders keep choosing the hardest business models ?

Every week I talk with orthopedic founders who are raising money to fight the same three wars at once: inventory,

The $11B Spine Market Is Not a Commodity. The Average Is.

ORTHOWORLD correctly estimated the worldwide spine market at $11.1 billion in 2025, up 3.3% from $10.8 billion the year before.

You Don’t Need the Whole Market. You Need a Small Circle of True Customers.

Every week I talk with orthopedic founders who are asking the wrong question: How do we get big enough? Big

🔴 Tiger’s Red-Hot Innovator of the Week: Startup brings a single Tissue Bank catalog. Fifteen Minutes. No Warehouse in Between.

Every Monday I share a startup that I really like. I call it the Red-Hot Innovator of the Week. As

[Tiger’s Weekly Intel] – OTA launches Trauma Metal, S+N Clears LANDMARK Knee, Regenerative Capital Prints

Ortho Conferences are still important, not for sales leads, but they tell us who launches. OTA in Nashville put pelvic

Stay out of the middle. Winners can own the edges.

Let me throw out a theory. Orthopedics is getting harder and harder for the small ortho company to gain market

Why Medartis Just Bought a Cadaver Lab — and Why Surgical Training Is How You Scale

Swiss extremity and CMF specialist Medartis Holding AG bought the M.A.R.C. Institute (Miami Anatomical Research Center) in Doral, Florida. The

“An Engineer Is Not an Engineer”

I hear this request all the time. Ortho executives call and say, “I need an Engineer.” That’s the wrong request.

The 6 PE Orthopedic Orphans

I wrote this article to better understand how our orthopedic Orphans ended up in such a no-man’s-land, why they cannot

🔴 Tiger’s Red-Hot Innovator of the Week: Dutch startup plugs the knee treatment gap

Every Monday I share a startup that I really like. I call it the Red-Hot Innovator of the Week. There

[Tiger’s Weekly Intel] – AOFAS launches; Extremity Metal; Spine Posts Receipts; Venture Stays Quiet.

Conference weeks are about what you can put in a tray, not what you can put on a slide. AOFAS

DePuy Synthes: Why a PE Buyout Beats an IPO

J&J announced an 18–24 month plan last October to separate Orthopaedics into a standalone public company under Namal Nawana. That

Q&A – the future of tissue preservation with Miach Ortho CEO, Sept 17 @ 3:00p EST.

Don’t miss this one. Jamal Rushdy, President & CEO of Miach Orthopaedics, joins us to talk about defining the standard

Reach Orthopaedics assets are for Sale – Oct 13 deadline

Disclaimer: I have no financial interest, just trying to help out an ortho startup with an exit. Eight years is

New therapy emerges to solve RA. The Ortho industry should pay attention.

This breakthrough caught my eye. Could have big ramifications to orthopedics in the future. In our industry, the landscape is

The Macro Reason: Why Your Ortho Startup Still Can’t Raise

I have watched orthopedic entrepreneurs beat their heads against the exact same brick wall since May 2022. That was the

🔴 Tiger’s Red-Hot Innovator of the Week: New Open AR Spine Guidance without a Lock-In

Every Monday I share a startup that I really like. I call it the Red-Hot Innovator of the Week. Spine

[Tiger’s Weekly Intel] – Strategics Bought Robots and Cuff Fixation; Specialists Stacked SKUs, Registries, and First Cases.

Consolidation cycles are about survival, not brand theater. What cleared a term sheet or a 510(k) this week had a

Apparently, Some Startups Can Still Fool Capital Allocators

Stack the right buzzwords and you can still raise capital—even twelve years after founding. Every deck needs a villain and

Hire the Smart Outlier Who Doesn’t Fit. That’s the Hire That Saves You.

In orthopedic startups, many founders get hypnotized by the implant, the regenerative platform, the AI planning software, the 510(k) path.

Hospitals Want a Faster Tuesday, Not New Gadgets

Your customer is not shopping for titanium, polyethylene or another console that looks impressive. They are shopping for a faster

Making sense of the Stryker/ZuriMED acquisition – it’s the Needle, not the Suture

Big Ortho rarely acquires early startups with limited commercial success. However, Stryker just acquired ZuriMED Technologies and its FiberLocker system.

Tiger’s Red-Hot Innovator of the Week: Dutch startup brings us a new knee shock absorber

Every Monday I share a startup that I really like. I call it the Red-Hot Innovator of the Week. I

[Tiger’s Weekly Intel] – Strategics bought fixation and robots; startups advanced FIM and software.

This last week the orthopedic market did not roar. It sorted. Stryker agreed to buy Zurich’s ZuriMED and its FiberLocker

New trend –> Enabling-technology startups are struggling.

What’s going on here? Augmedics, Proprio Vision and Think Surgical have all struggled. Augmedics proved its tech with 13,000 cases

Fastest and Slowest in 2026

Most of our industry is still talking about “orthopedics growing mid-single digits.” That average hides the real story. The US

What the Enovis–eCential Deal actually means for the rest of Spine

If you only skimmed the news, you probably walked away with the wrong story. The wrong story is: Spineart lost

New Zombie Company Award Recipient goes to an SI-Fusion Startup

You don’t ever want to work for a Zombie company. It’s a financial death spiral. When I find a new

🔴 Tiger’s Red-Hot Innovator of the Week: Implant companies sell the parts. This startup wants the operating system.

Every Monday I share a startup that I really like. I call it the Red-Hot Innovator of the Week. It’s

[Tiger’s Weekly Intel] – Where the Money Went: Outcomes Software, SI Fixation, ASC Closets

High Level Overview The themes for you this week are: 1/ US ortho funding is hunting closed-loop data, SI fixation,

Making sense of the Globus acquisition of Higgs Boson.

If you have spent any time reading my stuff, you already know my theory: Business Process > Product. Implants still

Capital is now funding the delivery system, not the device.

There is a sea change happening in ortho. (Sorry. It’s a long article – 8 minute read, but its a

Supercharge your career with AI tools – Sales, Marketing, R&D, Reg/Quality, Clinical, Fin, and Ops.

In our industry, AI is no longer speculative tech theater—it is raw leverage. Many ortho professionals today are using AI

Speed: The Overlooked Weapon for Orthopedic Startups

“Lost time is never found again.” — Benjamin Franklin Let’s talk about the ultimate unfair advantage that small Ortho companies

🔴 Tiger’s Red-Hot Innovator of the Week: How a Startup’s Pocket-Sized Wearable Is Ending Spine Fusion’s Compliance Blind Spot

A new startup is targeting a classic orthopedic issue: taking a proven, non-invasive technology (bone growth stimulation) that had gone

[Tiger’s Weekly Intel] – Innovation across robotics, biologics, joint preservation, and funding.

The theme running through this week’s deals, launches, and data drops is crystal clear: the entire musculoskeletal ecosystem is re-engineering

5 Reasons why companies accidentally hire B Players

Your people are your company. Not the technology. Not the building. Not the logo, inventory, or income statement. Your employees

How Ortho Device Makers Must Adapt to CMS Episode-Based Care

This is your wake up call. Most of our industry is still treating CMS payment changes like background noise. Big

How to Negotiate with Big Ortho Strategics Without Losing Control

Heads up Startup leaders! This could be the most important article that you will read this year. For an early-stage

🔴 Tiger’s Red-Hot Innovator of the Week: UK startup may eliminate hip dislocations.

There isn’t a good orthopedics solution for every patient—particularly in hips. Traditional ball-and-socket implants face persistent failure modes that remain

[Tiger’s Weekly Intel] – High-Growth Collisions: Bio Acquisition, Meduloc Raise, and ASC Workflow AI Takes Off

Observation The ortho venture space appears to be rewarding high-growth startup platforms that merge structural hardware with digital ecosystem integration.

The GLP-1s unlocking a new wave of total joint patients

When GLP-1 receptor agonists and those new multi-agonist weight-loss drugs started blowing up the headlines, the initial knee-jerk reaction across

Kickbacks still pay off in ortho—just not equally.

You can’t make this stuff up. It’s real. There is an unbalanced incentive and punishment scale when defrauding Medicare in

One Question That Exposes Fake Startup Value – The Disappearance Question.

Here’s a simple test that separates real startups from road kill: If your product disappeared tomorrow, would customers actively seek

There are always more than two options

Talented people in our industry often ask me for help with a big career decision. They’re usually trying to choose

🔴 Tiger’s Red-Hot Innovator of the Week – UK startup tackles Joint Preservation’s hardest problem: The Knee Treatment Gap

There isn’t a good orthopedics solution for every patient. Particularly in knees. There is a massive, gaping hole in treatments.