After a few mixed years in medical technology (MedTech) mergers and acquisition (M&A) activity, 2025 is shaping up to be a landmark year, particularly among cash-rich medical device strategics. In Q1 2025, there were 57 MedTech M&A transactions totaling $9.2 billion, compared to 62 deals worth $2.7 billion in Q1 2024, according to J.P. Morgan’s MedTech sector report.
First quarter venture capital (VC) funding was up as well, totaling $4.1 billion, the highest it has been since 2022. The number of confirmed transactions hit 216, reversing a four-quarter decline.
Several factors are contributing to this rise in activity. Post-pandemic economic recovery, an industry shift to building deep-domain offerings with product portfolios focused in certain therapeutic or specialty areas, an unusually conservative venture capitalist mindset, and a more favorable regulatory landscape are creating an environment ripe for deal making.
While VC firms have started increasing their activity this year, they have also pulled back investment in early stage companies, leaning in to more established companies – likely due to shifting tariffs and economic uncertainty. This landscape is opening opportunities for MedTech company leaders to aggressively expand through acquisition, as they latch on to specialized technologies to expand specific domain dominance and stay ahead of the competition.
For example, Boston Scientific’s recent acquisitions of Intera Oncology, Bolt Medical, and SoniVie demonstrate a focus on expanding its portfolio in areas like cardiovascular, electrophysiology, and stroke prevention. These moves – plus Stryker’s $4.9 billion purchase of Inari Medical – signal that big strategics see enormous value in acquiring innovative technologies and teams rather than building everything in-house.
The surge in VC funding was fueled by increased interest in preventative healthcare, such as body screening and advanced diagnostics. Underscoring this interest were large raises from Neko Health ($260 million), which blends advanced scanning tech, AI, and personalized care for early detection and prevention of disease; and Prenuvo ($120 million), which provides high-resolution full-body MRI scans designed to detect early signs of disease before symptoms emerge. All this to say that small to mid-size MedTech innovators are prime for the picking if they want to be on the market.
Preparing for a merger, acquisition, or round of funding is a complex process that can significantly impact valuation and success, yet few startups are prepared. This wave of dealmaking raises a timely question: How can you proactively position your company for acquisition – and secure the best possible valuation – long before a buyer comes knocking?
This was recently discussed on a panel at the industry conference, LSI 2025. Joining the conversation were MedTech leaders, Jeff Byrne, chief financial officer of Artelon (acquired by Stryker in 2024), which specializes in innovative soft tissue fixation products for foot and ankle and sports medicine procedures, and Andrew Morris, chief commercial officer MY01, an innovative medical technology company focused on transforming the diagnosis of limb perfusion injuries through its Continuous Perfusion Sensing Technology (CPST) Platform®.
Here’s a combined perspective on what MedTech innovators should be doing now to get M&A-ready in this dynamic market.
Define Your Exit Early & Align the Business
Not all exits are the same, and failing to plan accordingly is one of the most common mistakes startups make.
“A strategic buyer, a private equity partner, or an IPO may require different business structures and commercial strategies,” Andrew Morris noted. “If you’re not clear on a sustainable business model and exit plan, your commercial team will likely flounder. How can they target appropriately? How can they build and execute a plan if they don’t understand the exit plan or at least have any long-term outlook?”
It’s critical to decide early on if the company wants to be acquired by a strategic company, attract PE investment, or pursue an IPO. With this goal in mind from day one, leaders can build a comprehensive commercial model, revenue targets, and team structure designed to reach the objective.
Build a Data-Rich Commercial Stack
Acquirers expect more than promising clinical results. They want proof that company executives understand their market and can scale sustainably.
Credible, detailed market data makes a huge difference. Jeff Byrne noted,“Everybody’s got a $2-3 billion Total Addressable Market (TAM) slide. It’s much more important to say, ‘We did $500K last year and here’s why there’s a credible plan to get to $4 million.’ The more specific you can be, and the more you can tie that history to your assumptions, the further you will go with investors and buyers alike.”
Morris added, “When joining MY01, the first thing we did was use a commercial intelligence tool to ingest all our sales data so we could show potential investors our TAM, specific surgeons’ names, CPT codes, penetration rate, and pipeline by region and rep. This allowed us to replace hypothetical vision with real evidence in funding pitches, connect top-down TAM with bottom-up pipeline data and eliminate inefficiencies in reporting and analysis.”
Focus on Clean, Scalable Revenue
Top-line revenue means little if it isn’t repeatable and scalable beyond initial champions – or early adopters. “Good, clean revenue and understanding the specific nuances of what that means is really important,” added Morris. “For example, is it a hundred surgeons that did two procedures, or two surgeons that did a hundred procedures? That tells you very different things about scalability.”
Buyers want to see distributed usage across a broad base of customers – not one-off pilots or heavy dependence on a few Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs). For example, Artelon used clean revenue data and customer segmentation to prepare for its acquisition by Stryker. It helped the company differentiate between top-line growth from KOLs vs. scalable growth from broader market adoption.
“We were able to show who our doctors were, their procedure volumes, progress over time, customer segments and adoption patterns,” said Byrne. “We also could tie actual sales invoices to surgeons and indications, track onboarding of new doctors, and link that to future revenues.”
Ground GTM Strategy in Evidence, Not Hype
Today, companies can use data to vet KOLs and ensure they’re truly aligned with the product’s goals, rather than just adding brand weight. Investors may call key physicians in the category and ask them to validate a product, saying “yes, this is a real unmet need or problem and here are the challenges or opportunities I see for technology to solve it and what the path would look like.
“The more you can build that network of advocates early on is extremely helpful because, at the end of the day, these experts are living and breathing these spaces every single day,” added Morris. Pair that early adoption with robust clinical evidence, published outcomes, and a clear education strategy. This creates a repeatable adoption pathway – not just a single win.
Craft a Narrative That Closes Deals
Every potential buyer will expect a clear, credible story – one that ties your company’s origin, technology, adoption, and growth path into a compelling, data-backed narrative.
A cohesive, believable narrative supported by metrics, milestones, and a realistic growth forecast dramatically reduces friction in due diligence and maximizes valuation.
The Takeaway
MedTech M&A is in the spotlight and there’s no shortage of big companies eager to buy promising technologies that align with their growth strategies. For startups and scale-ups, that’s an opportunity,but only if they take the right steps now.
Define an exit strategy, invest in credible commercial data, focus on repeatable revenue, build an evidence-based adoption model, and prepare the story your future buyer wants to hear. Companies that do this well will be best positioned to thrive in this dynamic era of MedTech dealmaking.
About Alex Wakefield
Alex Wakefield is Chief Revenue Officer at AcuityMD, a MedTech intelligence platform for more than 300 medical device companies – including six of the top 10. Commercial leaders use AcuityMD to identify target markets, surface top opportunities, and grow their business. With customers ranging from pre-commercial to enterprise, AcuityMD is committed to delivering the right insights, enabling companies to understand where and how to sell faster to accelerate the adoption of medical technology.
