CONUS, a German startup that builds AI assistants for surgical teams, says it has deployed its platform in 17 European hospitals and lists early collaborations with major medical device manufacturers including Johnson & Johnson, Stryker and Zimmer Biomet on its Y Combinator profile. The company recently launched CONUS Intelligence, a clinical reference tool that draws on more than 500,000 academic papers and 2,000 manufacturer documents to answer questions during and between procedures.
The product offers page-level citations for every response, an approach meant to let surgeons and OR staff verify sources on the fly. CONUS describes itself as an "AI knowledge layer for medical devices" bridging manufacturers and hospitals, though the company is careful to frame the tool as educational rather than diagnostic.
Consolidating a fragmented knowledge landscape
CONUS Intelligence sits atop a platform that pulls together implant specifications, surgical technique guides, hospital SOPs, regulatory guidelines and device compatibility charts. Users can query the AI about surgical approaches or device indications, and the system returns answers with links directly to pages in the original documents.
The knowledge base draws from peer-reviewed journals, official clinical guidelines and manufacturer instructions for use, while explicitly excluding forums and unverified sources. The company states the tool is for research and education only, not patient-specific medical decisions, and claims it does not qualify as a medical device under EU MDR Article 2(1).
CONUS runs as a web app and on iOS and Android. Pricing starts free for individual clinicians, with paid tiers at €9.99 and €19.99 monthly that unlock higher AI request volumes and deeper research analyses. Hospitals and device manufacturers negotiate enterprise licenses separately.
From PhD research to Y Combinator
Vincent Paffrath, the managing director, was a PhD researcher on generative and agentic AI at ETH Zurich before working on GenAI adoption at Bosch. Co-founder Alex studied electrical engineering at RWTH Aachen and built biomedical electronics at Miltenyi Biotec. A third co-founder, Max, rounds out the team.
According to Paffrath's LinkedIn account, he founded CONUS in 2022, formed the current team with Alex and Max in 2024, and met Y Combinator General Partner Tom Blomfield at an event at ETH Zurich. "Tom convinced us that we were thinking too small about CONUS," Paffrath wrote. The team began with a surgical information platform and layered in AI capabilities later.
Five chief physicians in trauma and orthopedic surgery back the company as advisors, including Prof. Dr. Sascha Flohé at Städtisches Klinikum Solingen and Dr. Thomas Paffrath at Krankenhaus der Augustinerinnen Cologne.
Partnerships and traction claims
CONUS says the product is live in 17 European hospitals, though the company declined to name them. Its website displays partnership logos from Stryker, the German Trauma Society, Orthofix and B. Braun under a "Renowned Partners" heading. The company lists early manufacturer relationships with Johnson & Johnson, Stryker and Zimmer Biomet on its Y Combinator profile, but has not issued formal partnership announcements.
Perhaps more revealing than the headline numbers: CONUS's institutional terms emphasize neutrality, stating that manufacturers cannot pay for preferential sorting and that usage data is not shared with device makers. The company hosts all data on servers in Germany and says it complies with GDPR.
A crowded but fragmented space
CONUS operates in a field where established players own pieces of the puzzle, but no single platform has dominated. RLDatix's oneSOURCE product provides access to instructions for use and manuals from manufacturers, claiming more than 400,000 document links and 10,000 organizations globally. Global Healthcare Exchange acquired Explorer Surgical in 2021, which offered digital OR playbooks and remote case support.
The cautionary tale here may be Avail Medsystems, which built remote procedural telepresence tools for device reps and specialists. Avail shut down abruptly in late 2023 after raising venture funding; its core technology was later acquired by robotics startup Mendaera in early 2024. Wolters Kluwer launched UpToDate Expert AI as a clinical assistant focused on general medical knowledge rather than device-specific content.
Expansion plans
CONUS says it is expanding into the US market and hiring a senior backend engineer for its AI data platform, according to job postings. In its own words, the company sees the product evolving into "the default interface between hospitals, clinicians, medical device manufacturers, and clinical AI" over time.
Whether that vision holds depends on execution in a space where regulatory caution, entrenched vendor relationships and the inherent conservatism of surgical practice all work against fast-moving startups. The company has a foothold in Europe and backing from Y Combinator. What it doesn't yet have is proof that hospitals will pay at scale for something that begins as a search bar.
