This Next Billion-Dollar AI Startup Wants To Streamline Paperwork So You Don't Have To

Forbes

Landing a spot on the 2025 Forbes' Next Billion Dollar Startups list, Collate, led by founder and CEO Surbhi Sarna, is aiming to revolutionize the life sciences industry with AI.  Imagine cutting through the mind-boggling regulatory red tape that keeps life-saving drugs and devices from reaching patients. Collate's cutting-edge AI is doing just that, with the potential to get products to market five times faster.  In this candid conversation with Forbes Senior Editor Amy Feldman, Sarna shares her compelling journey: from being "buried under paperwork" herself to realizing the immense power of LLMs (a type of AI) that made her "stop being able to sleep at night" until she launched Collate. Discover why this seasoned entrepreneur, who exited her last company at 32, felt she "just wasn't done" and had to jump back into building.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2025/08/12/next-billion-dollar-startups-2025/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm Amy Feldman, a senior editor at Forbes, and I'm here today with Sorby Sarna, founder and

00:09CEO of Collate, a San Francisco startup that uses AI to automate the paperwork required

00:14for life sciences companies. Welcome, Sorby. Hi, Amy. Thank you so much for having me. So

00:21nice to be here. It's delightful to have you here. So Collate is one of 25 companies that

00:26made this year's Forbes Next Billion Dollar Startups list, which came out earlier in the

00:30week. And that's interesting for a lot of reasons, not least of which you just came out of stealth

00:34in January. So can you tell me a bit about the sort of six months of what must have been

00:40just quite a whirlwind? Yeah, it's been an incredible year. And certainly the last six months have

00:47been more fun and, of course, more work than I could have imagined beforehand. But it's

00:55I don't know if there's ever been a better time to build, at least during my adulthood.

01:04I imagine when the internet first came onto the scene, this is how it felt. And so I think

01:12there are so many factors, both internal to my own personal journey and professional journey

01:19that have made the last six months incredible, combined with what it's like to be building

01:24an AI company and solving a real need for customers that, you know, at the end of the day are trying

01:30to get new products out for patients. It's quite the thrill. That's cool. Take me back to the

01:36beginning. Why did you decide to start it? What was the sort of aha moment where you're like, I need

01:39to start Collate right now? You know, I was at Y Combinator. And before Y Combinator, I had done a

01:46life science company working on early detection of ovarian cancer. And then join YC as their first

01:52general partner dedicated to the life sciences and software solutions for the healthcare industry.

01:59And I was really enjoying that. I mean, it was it's a being at YC is as a wonderful experience and

02:05being able to pay it forward and work with other founders that are looking to make impact in the

02:10space. But when I saw the ability of LLMs, and I equated that to the paperwork that I was buried under,

02:21I just felt like someone who has taken a product all the way from the back of a paper napkin to

02:29commercial readiness should start a company like this, you know, that can help with the full product

02:35development lifecycle, where I think a lot of folks that are working on documentation, their backgrounds

02:41come from a very specific part of the journey, versus looking at the whole thing holistically. So I did

02:47actually attempt to fund or find companies that were doing it first. But then, you know, I've never

02:55been an entrepreneur for the sake of being an entrepreneur or a founder. The idea has always

03:02occurred to me first. And then I've always felt so compelled that I then started the company. And

03:07that's what happened in this case, I stopped being able to sleep at night, I picked up coding again,

03:12and then it was just an eventuality that was going to happen.

03:17That's kind of amazing. I mean, and it's interesting, because some people are really more

03:20entrepreneurs, and some people are more VCs, like some people make that switch. And they're like,

03:24okay, this is cool. Now I'm just going to invest in companies and find companies. And then some people

03:28like you come back and realize this is kind of what they're meant to do.

03:31Yeah, I think it was, it was a really, really hard decision for me. And one that kept me up at night,

03:40but then eventually, at the end of the day, after I just I went through, you know, the checklist and the

03:46pros and cons, and you try to be analytical about the decision. And at the end of the day, if you're honest

03:52with yourself, and what's in your hearts, and just knowing what's going to make you happy on a day to day

03:57basis, it was then clear that I needed to get back into it, you know, and I, I exited my last company

04:05at 32. You know, and I think that I just wasn't done. I just hadn't scratched my entrepreneurial itch

04:11yet, you know? Yeah, we and we've talked previously, but I'm curious to talk more, you know, on this call

04:18about this company versus your your previous one. I mean, when you started the previous one,

04:23you talked before about, you know, having a little difficulty fundraising the first time,

04:27but it's all different once you sell. Yeah, I mean, it's amazing how different it is, you know,

04:34going back to 2012, and attitudes, like, you know, towards women's health and doing a medical device

04:41diagnostic company. I was talking to a VC recently, who said, man, you really did your last company on

04:49hard mode, right? Because women's health diagnostic medical device, all of that, versus kind of doing

04:56something right now in a hotter space. The difference in fundraising, you know, has been

05:02pretty tremendous for me. But I like to think that I keep the scrappiness and the attitude of the first

05:10time, because the first time I didn't have the validation of VCs that I was on the right track.

05:16And I let the customers, the physicians, the patients be the validation of what I was working

05:24on. And I'm bringing that forward to this company, right? That's where the ultimate validation comes

05:29from is, what are the aha moments for customers that you are creating? You know, what reaction are

05:35you getting from them? So, in a lot of ways, this company is extremely different. You know, this is AI

05:41software, a completely different space, very different team makeups, and all of that. But the things that

05:46bring me the most joy and sort of my attitude towards how to build this company correctly,

05:52those things remain the same. That's interesting. It's interesting that being in this hot space,

05:57I mean, AI has kind of eaten everything just on this list alone, 20 out of 25 companies are in some way,

06:04AI companies now. How do you think about AI, both in terms of how you use it at Collate and in terms of

06:12how you see it changing healthcare and life sciences more broadly?

06:16From my perspective, and of course, I'm bringing a lot of bias into it. But I just have to remember

06:22that I'm a scientist by training, and all of the other, I will call them fads that came and went and

06:28that sort of thing. I never jumped ship to them. They never really changed my view of how the world

06:33should function. But in this specific case, I am extremely confident that if someone builds the

06:43right product, the healthcare landscape will improve. And we'll be able to get medical devices,

06:51drugs, diagnostics to market. I know it, I say five times faster, because 10 times sounds like an

06:59exaggeration. But I think it will literally be that. I think that AI is going to enable large

07:05companies to do multiple filings in different countries simultaneously, that when new standards

07:12come out, AI will be able to adjust your paperwork automatically. I just think that

07:18this is kind of what this industry needed. You know, I'm really excited about the impact.

07:26Yeah, I mean, it's kind of amazing to think about, because the paperwork is mind boggling

07:32in life sciences. Nobody really wants to do it. But if you don't do it, you don't have that

07:37life saving drug or life saving device, or it just it all has to happen. And so that is kind of an

07:43amazing change. And the way the paperwork works, it's all tangled up, cross functions and all of that,

07:52right. And so that's where building this whole deterministic platform around different AI

07:58workflows is so important, you know, to kind of bring down those silos between functions and that

08:04sort of thing. And someone has to be willing to have the patience to build such a big product,

08:10you know, but I'm here for it. I would love to dedicate the next 10 years of my career to this.

08:16Yes. That's cool. Since you since you've started, have there been things that have been surprising or

08:23unexpected, you know, starting this company? And what have those been?

08:28So, you know, being a life science person through and through myself, I actually thought that I was

08:34going to go into this with way more skepticism than I've received so far. I'm not saying that skeptics

08:41don't exist. I'm just saying that there are more believers than I thought they were. There are other

08:48people, other leaders at large companies, certainly at startups, who see the promise of this that

08:54understand the ROI of it, you know, before I walk into the room. And I think if you're someone that

09:03is coming from the life sciences and understands that patient safety is always prioritized over everything

09:09else. And sometimes that means purposely adding friction into your software, right? You always

09:14talk about frictionless software that doesn't really work with the life sciences, you need checks and

09:18balances everywhere. And they know they're talking to another life science person who is trying to help

09:24who's done the same workflows who sat in their seats, who's thought about the same P&L.

09:31This is the attitude is much more open than I thought it would be. I think that's, that's been the most

09:35surprising to me. It's interesting. And I wonder if that's, you know, largely because it's an AI

09:41company. And right now the market and consumers also were very open to AI is going to help us and

09:47help us with all of these hard things. Yeah, I think it and especially if someone has been a power user

09:53of AI personally, that has a lot to do with how they might be willing to adopt it professionally,

09:58right? So I definitely see that correlation as well. For other founders who might be watching

10:06this, what advice would you give to them, especially other life sciences founders?

10:11All I can say, so I guess your question was directly directed more towards founders. Maybe if you don't

10:18mind, I can address people who are thinking about starting companies right now. The water is warm,

10:23you've got to get in. It is so fun and rewarding to create entirely new classes of software that didn't

10:31exist before to reimagine problems that our customers are facing in a way that you just simply could not

10:38do before. And not to mention the customer facing part of it, but how much your engineering teams are

10:46empowered by AI tools, how much senior tenant, you know, you take a 10x engineer, and you give them all of

10:53the right tools. And all of a sudden, they're 100x engineer. And we're seeing that at Coley, you know,

10:59so all I can say is, it is just so fun and so rewarding. And of course, so much work, but then it

11:07just doesn't, it doesn't, it's a bit of a cliche, but doesn't quite feel like work when you're having

11:11this much fun and seeing this much progress, you know. So I would say, take the plunge, there's never

11:17been a better time to build. That's an amazing note to end on. Are there any final thoughts before we

11:24wrap up? No, I would just say that, thank you again so much for the great coverage. I'm extremely

11:34grateful for it. I'm extremely grateful for this opportunity, you know, to build and help folks that

11:41are trying to help patients. There's nothing more rewarding. We're glad to be able to feature you. And

11:46thanks for joining us today. And we'll look forward to continuing to follow the company.

11:50Perfect. Thank you so much again, Amy. Wonderful to be here.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended