AO Innovation Funding
We drive your idea toward success with expertise and funding.
Empowering innovators: From conception to market
Recipients of AO Innovation Funding get to experience the essence of the AO: unparalleled collaboration across clinical specialties, research and industry know-how through our network of more than a half-million healthcare professionals—all in service to advancing new frontiers in orthopedics and improving patient outcomes.
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Why partnering with AO
For Innovators: Selected innovators benefit from our unique ecosystem, accessing to project funding, clinical and regulatory support, as well as market know-how, ensuring early fit to surgeons’ clinical needs.
For Investors: Partnering with the AO means de-risking orthopedic MedTech innovation, with our global network of expertise, and our reputation.
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Our Offering
- Customized innovation project funding
The AO nurtures innovation with seed money that kick-starts projects and empowers innovators to transform ideas into impactful realities. We bridge the gap between ideation and execution, ensuring that promising projects thrive with the necessary resources.The AO recognizes the uniqueness of each project, and our support reflects that. We tailor timeframes and funding to each project's specific needs, nurturing innovation efficiently while allowing innovators to focus on their transformative ideas.
- Technology translation support and mentorship
Move from concept to real-world solutions with the AO’s assistance. We facilitate the transition from lab to practical orthopedic solutions, effectively addressing clinical challenges with the professional counseling of global leaders from across science, medicine, and industry.
- Incubator ecosystem across clinical specialties
Our innovation ecosystem fosters collaboration, guidance, and growth across diverse clinical specialties, allowing novel ideas flourish and contributing to transformative advancements.
- Customized innovation project funding
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Scope
In scope ideas
- Ideas for innovative products to improve musculoskeletal patient care.
- New services and initiatives strategically relevant to AO’s core activities and/or the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders.
- Activities supporting the AO in building a repository of curated medical images for Artificial Intelligence (AI) use cases, to improve patient care.
Not in scope
- Research projects or stand-alone clinical research studies.
- Reusable surgical instruments
- Pharmaceuticals
- Events
- Product ideas with weak business cases
- Product ideas with no protectable IP or older than five years
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Evaluation Criteria
Product development
- Desirability: Relevance of the clinical need, market size.
- Viability: Risks, Return on Investment.
- Feasibility: IP strategy, regulatory pathway, technical feasibility.
- Patentable idea or submitted patent application (not older than 5 years)
- Significant improvement over existing solutions – degree of innovation
- Strong business case
Strategic or educational projects
- Enabling AO activities in new fields (Digitalization, Data management, Medical imaging for AI, etc.), or testing new hypothesis.
- Feasibility and Sustainability: Close collaboration with the AO department(s) benefiting from the project outcomes (for long term sustainability after the seed funding phase).
- Viability: Value for the AO
- Funding only direct project costs (no overhead).
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Eligibility and Timeline
- Anyone can apply at any time.
- Each applicant will receive the first evaluation feedback within two months from the submission deadline (being the end of February and August).
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General Terms & Conditions
All applications will be handled on a confidential basis. Only the AO Foundation Board, the relevant funding governing body, and the AO executive management will have access to the applications, and only for the purpose of evaluation. Experts will be involved only under a non-disclosure agreement. For applicants gaining funding approval, the collaboration agreement with the AO grants the right to publicly use the applicant's name, photograph, and non-confidential details about the project, agreed beforehand with the applicant.
Intellectual Property (IP)
A cooperation contract will be negotiated to define the rights concerning the involved IP. Usually, any income generated by the projects will be shared between the AO and the inventor. The relative shares depend on the status of the idea when the collaboration started
The AO's four-step formula for success
1. Your idea for improving patient care or surgeon education should:
- Provide an innovative solution to a real clinical/educational problem
- Have the potential to be patent protected
- Be driven by your plan, passion, and determination to make it happen
- Be suitable to scale
2. We support you with funding and expertise to navigate the complex landscape of intellectual property protection, development and manufacturing, regulatory approval, building clinical evidence, and an exit strategy.
3. You gain access to a global network of more than 500,000 health care professionals in the musculoskeletal field.
4. Together, we can make an impact by improving patient care and surgeon education.
We share the labor and its yield, to the benefit of all.
Success stories
AO's dedication to innovation is evident in our success stories. Innovators supported by the AO emerge as leaders in orthopedic solutions for surgeon education and use.
Successful projects showcase how our innovation funding turns visionary concepts into impactful realities, reinforcing our commitment to successful outcomes. A selection of these projects include:
- Digitally enhanced hands-on surgical training (DEHST), a patented optical tracking technology that is now the cornerstone for a new generation of cost-effective, transportable, and digitally augmented training station for hands-on surgical training
- OSapp, AO’s interactive, virtual osteosynthesis software tool and learning platform
- Momentum Health, a smartphone app empowering scoliosis patients to manage the condition
- Biphasic Plate Distal Femur, a newly “AO Approved” plate design to improve fracture stabilization and healing
- Distal Radius Intramedullary Nail, a solution for the fixation of unstable extraarticular fractures

"A perfect place to look for innovation is where you see challenges."
Michael Schütz - Technology Transfer Board Chairperson
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