CommonsCon 2025 Results!
Companies Proving the Future of Outpatient Surgery is Now
A few weeks ago, we launched CommonsCon 2025, our first-ever health tech pitch event.
Inspired by healthcare innovation conferences like DOCSF and HLTH, the goal of CommonsCon is to highlight the companies building the next generation of surgical innovation with a focus on ASC Enablement.
To that end, we received a number of entries from some really interesting companies. It always exciting to see the level of enthusiasm, innovation, and conviction of startups building in healthcare. If there’s reason to be optimistic about the future of American medicine, this is it.
Some quick stats on the companies:
100% have raised funding
62.5% — Growth/Scaling Stage
37.5% — Pre-Seed/Seed Stage
Cohort funding range: $925k-$30M+
Average funding: ~$14M
Winners were selected based on their “ASC enablement” potential: lowering the barrier to safely perform higher acuity procedures in the ambulatory setting.
Thanks to all the teams who submitted their information along with a pitch deck and/or demonstration video. Lots of cool stuff being built.
Now, on to the companies.
Disclaimer: I have no financial, advisory, or equity relationship with any of these companies.
Honorable Mention
Company: Repatient
Contact: Chris Blakely, Co-founder & COO
Pitch: Repatient converts high-risk financial obligation into a guaranteed revenue stream through its core value proposition — offering 0% interest, no-denial payment plans to every patient, eliminating the primary financial barrier to care.
Company: Sigmatic.ai
Contact: Ehab Gabr, Co-founder & CEO
Pitch: At Sigmatic, we believe outpatient facilities are at the core of transforming healthcare. We focus on optimizing operations, using the latest AI tools to streamline supply chain and operations and empower surgeons and clinicians to own more of the value chain.
Company: Momentum Health
Contact: Philippe Miller, Co-founder & CEO
Pitch: Momentum Health is the first FDA-cleared AI company in Physical Medicine, enabling 3D digital twins of the human body from a simple smartphone video. Our platform, Momentum Spine, helps surgeons monitor patients before and after surgery through radiation-free imaging, dynamic gait analysis, and remote functional tracking.
Company: Force Therapeutics
Contact: Zaid Al-Nassir, Digital Content Strategy & Research Consultant
Pitch: Force Therapeutics is a provider-prescribed digital care and patient engagement platform empowering hospitals and ASCs to optimize surgical episodes through standardized care pathways, automated workflows and PROMs collection, and continuous patient education and engagement. Proven to improve outcomes, reduce readmissions, and enhance operational efficiency, Force enables organizations to seamlessly deliver high-quality, value-based care.
Company: LainaHealth
Contact: Ryan Eder, Founder & CEO
Pitch: LainaHealth is a virtual physical therapy practive that pairs licensed therapists with a web-based AI assistant “Laina” to remove the logistical and economic barriers to physical therapy.
Winners
Company: Mach Medical
Contact: Dave Anderson, Co-Founder & Business Development Leader
Pitch: Manufacture high performance, lower cost cementless implants according to an individual patient’s pre-op plan and deliver in just 3 weeks. The novel cementless technology and just-in-time delivery model reduce overall implant costs as well as logistics burden and storage footprint at ASCs.
ASC Enablement Factor: Implants are the biggest line item expense for joint replacement and spine fusion/disc replacement procedures. Traditional implant supply chain and logistics are generally pretty messy. Inventory is often manually tracked by facility staff or vendor reps. The average hospital wastes $12 million annually on poor supply chain management. Meanwhile, ASCs live and die on operational efficiency and cost control.
Mach Medical aims to solve traditional medical device supply chain problems by offering “on-demand” manufacturing of cementless knee replacement implants. By manufacturing implants according to each patient’s preoperative surgical plan, the company produces only what’s necessary. Doing so reduces inventory 85% and generates cost savings that can be passed on the facility.
The migration of higher acuity procedures to ASCs creates a fascinating opportunity for smaller medical device vendors. By delivering cost-effective alternatives, offering innovative solutions, and simplifying inventory management, companies like Mach Medical become an extension of the ASC supply chain. That’s an advantage larger vendors can’t match.
Company: VISIE
Contact: Douglas Fairbanks, President & CEO
The Pitch: VISIE is an AI and AR surgical platform that transforms medical imaging into real-time 3D guidance, enabling safer, faster, and more precise surgery.
ASC Enablement Factor: First generation surgical robots and computer navigation systems were ahead of their time. Early technology was clunky and of dubious clinical value. Hardware ended up collecting dust or serving as expensive white coat hangers. The rise of second generation tech like Intuitive’s Da Vinici and Styker’s MAKO changed the discussion. Surgical robots have gone mainstream.
But, did we learn our lessons from the shortcoming of early systems?
Despite their advances, today’s robotic systems also have their shortcomings. Orthopedic applications require the placement of surgical pins — introducing potential complications like infections and fractures. Anatomy tracking is still relatively crude, relying on an inefficient mapping process. Existing systems don’t visualize soft tissue well, if at all. In short, they’re slower, less precise, and not as user-friendly as they should , two things you definitely don’t want in an ASC.
We’ve progressed from Robotics 1.0 to Robotics 2.0, but there’s still plenty of room to capture the full potential of this technology. VISIE aims to overcome these issues by saving time, improving tissue visualization, and making surgery safer. That’s Robotics 3.0.
VISIE’s tech feels like the next logical step in the evolution of technology-assisted surgery. In consumer tech terms, it’s a generational leap on the order of BlackBerry to iPhone. In med tech terms, it could be the generational leap from predominantly inpatient to predominantly outpatient complex surgical care.
Company: Medivis
Contact: Christopher Morley, MD, Co-Founder and President
Pitch: Medivis is an AI and AR surgical platform that transforms medical imaging into real-time 3D guidance, enabling safer, faster, and more precise surgery.
ASC Enablement Factor: The transition of surgical procedures from hospital to outpatient settings is well under way. Site of service shift may well be the most powerful mechanism to reduce costs while maintaining quality and access. To that point, ASC procedures cost 30-50% less than the same procedures performed in an inpatient setting. Same surgery, twice the cost.
Both Kaufman Hall (The Case for an Ambulatory-Focused Strategy) and Trilliant (Winning in an Outpatient World: Preparing for Potential Changes to Medicare’s IPO List) published articles highlighting this opportunity. These articles paint a clear picture: if you don’t have an ambulatory strategy, you better develop one fast. And part of that strategy should include shifting high acuity, traditionally hospital-based procedures to outpatient facilities — safely.
That last part is crucial, and Medivis aims to make it possible. Studies show that up to 15% of spine implants are misplaced. This scenario can be dangerous in a hospital setting and catastrophic in an ASC. Medivis’ combined AR/AI solution eliminates this concern with bespoke intraoperative guidance, superimposing medical data directly on to the patient’s anatomy in real-time. Surgeons get immediate feedback, giving them the confidence to perform complex procedures safely and efficiently.
Although the initial application is in spine surgery, Medivis’ vision is to create a new standard of surgical intelligence. The company has plans to expand the application of its technology to cranial and prostate navigation. Widespread adoption outpatient adoption of delicate intracranial and radical prostate surgeries may seem far-fetched. But we once thought the same about joint replacements and invasive cardiac procedures. Solutions like Medivis will challenge our thinking about what’s possible in an ASC.
Wrapping Up
At Commons, we’re big believers in the future of outpatient surgery and the shift to ASC-based procedures. The trend is already happening, but the CommonsCon 2025 companies and their solutions have the potential to turbocharge it. Performing higher acuity procedures in lower cost settings may be the biggest opportunity to reduce healthcare costs.
The time is now, and our 2025 cohort of companies is well positioned to lead the charge on ASC enablement.
Ben Schwartz, MD, MBA
Editor-in-Chief, The Surgeon’s Record
SVP, Care Services & Strategy
ben@commonsclinic.com
