Technical orthopedic devices hadn't changed fundamentally in decades. Patients received static hardware, then adapted their lives around it. Acumen co-founded a company built on a different premise: that sensor technology, microprocessor control, and mobile connectivity could make orthopedic devices adapt to the patient instead.

The external orthopedics market is small, specialized, and dominated by a handful of global manufacturers who control distribution. A startup entering this space faces a brutal math problem. R&D timelines are long. Regulatory pathways are complex. The buyer universe for the finished product is measured in single digits. And traditional venture capital largely ignores orthopedic devices because the market size doesn't fit the standard return model. Without a capital strategy that matched the reality of the market, the technology would never leave the lab.

Acumen built the company from scratch as a 50% co-founder. We combined our own capital with over a dozen competitive federal awards to fund development without diluting the cap table to zero. We closed three acquisitions to bring in the technology and R&D partners the company needed. We built a patent estate of nearly twenty patents. When the products were ready, we secured a strategic investor who believed in the category and led multiple rounds as sole investor to take several product lines to market. Along the way, the company became the first medical device maker recognized by Apple for offering patient control of an orthopedic device through iPhone.

Sold to the global market leader through an asset sale. Multiple R&D 100 and Edison Awards. Technology now reaching patients worldwide.

This is what we mean when we say we build companies, not just advise them.