Surbhi Sarna, a name well-recognized in the entrepreneurial and life sciences communities, has embarked on her latest venture, Collate. As the CEO and founder, Sarna recently took to LinkedIn to announce Collate’s successful $30 million seed round.
Sarna founded her first company, nVision Medical, after a personal health scare with ovarian cysts during her teenage years. This experience motivated her to develop the first FDA-cleared device for early detection of ovarian cancer, leading to nVision’s acquisition by Boston Scientific for $275 million in 2018.
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Her time as a partner at Y Combinator (YC) further honed her expertise, allowing her to support a range of startups. However, the entrepreneurial itch returned, compelling her to leave YC and establish Collate. “I realized that there was an opportunity here, but it could only be started by someone that lived both that documentation piece day-in and day-out, and also understood the power of AI,” Sarna explained in an article by Forbes.
Collate aims to revolutionize the life sciences industry by automating the labor-intensive documentation process through AI. Sarna’s vision for Collate is clear: “Document creation for the life science industry may sound super-boring, not a sexy thing to work on. But it’s a gigantic opportunity, and there’s no way you could do this with deterministic code. You needed large language models.”
The AI platform promises to streamline paperwork for diagnostic, medical device, and drug development companies from concept to market. By doing so, it aims to accelerate research and development, optimize preclinical and clinical trials, enhance quality management, and reduce the time to market for new drugs, diagnostics, and devices.
The $30 million seed round, led by Redpoint with participation from First Round, Conviction Partners, and YC, values Collate at over $100 million. “This is going to be low velocity, high contract value selling, but it’s going to be really sticky, and each business is going to get a lot of value out of it,” said Satish Dharmaraj of Redpoint, emphasizing the platform’s potential for long-term impact.
Sarna’s co-founders, Nate Smith and Jigish Patel, bring complementary expertise to the table. Smith, a former YC visiting partner and co-founder of Lever, joined Collate after a unanticipated conversation with Sarna. “It was very organic and very cute,” Smith remarked, on the natural synergy in their partnership. Collate’s approach to leveraging AI in life sciences documentation sets it apart from other players in the healthcare stack.
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Sarna is clear about her objectives: “At this point, I’m very clear on the type of culture I want to build and the type of people I want to surround myself with. That is one of the greatest joys and privileges of building your own company. This time, we’re going to be much quicker, and I will be more precise.”
By addressing the documentation challenges through AI, Collate is set to empower companies to focus on what truly matters: advancing human health.