# Samay

> Samay (formerly Respira Labs) is a San Francisco Bay Area medtech company building Sylvee, a wearable chest patch that pings the lungs with sound waves and uses AI to detect COPD and predict flare-ups before they turn dangerous. Founded by physician-inventor Dr. Maria Artunduaga, the company turns a $40 acoustic sensor into a continuous, at-home alternative to hospital pulmonary function tests, aiming to catch the invisible early signs of lung disease that standard tools miss.

- **Founded:** 2018
- **Headquarters:** Mountain View, California, United States
- **Founders:** Dr. Maria Artunduaga (Founder & CEO)
- **Team size:** Small startup team (company LinkedIn associates ~280 people in its network; core team is much smaller)
- **Products:** Sylvee, Samay AI platform, Research & pharma partnerships
- **Notable:** First Latin American startup to win the MedTech Innovator accelerator competition (2024), Featured as the 2025 Success Story at the American Thoracic Society's Respiratory Innovation Summit, Clinical results: 90% accuracy diagnosing COPD and 83% accuracy detecting air trapping vs. hospital PFTs

## Products & services

- **Sylvee** — A wearable chest patch that projects sound into the lungs via tiny speakers and microphones and reads the returning acoustic resonance. Worn continuously, it measures lung volume, capacity and airflow, and uses AI to detect COPD (90% accuracy) and air trapping, an early predictor of exacerbations (83% accuracy vs. hospital PFTs).
- **Samay AI platform** — The cloud and ML layer that turns raw acoustic signals into interpretable pulmonary metrics and exacerbation risk alerts for patients, clinicians, and pharma research partners.
- **Research & pharma partnerships** — Data and algorithm collaborations with pharmaceutical and medical device companies to detect conditions such as small airway disease and measure medication efficacy in trials.

## Achievements

- First Latin American startup to win the MedTech Innovator accelerator competition (2024)
- Featured as the 2025 Success Story at the American Thoracic Society's Respiratory Innovation Summit
- Clinical results: 90% accuracy diagnosing COPD and 83% accuracy detecting air trapping vs. hospital PFTs
- Peer-reviewed presentation in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (ATS)
- Partnership secured with global pharma company Chiesi Farmaceutici
- Raised ~$2.9M in non-dilutive funding from NIH and NSF

## Latest updates

- **2026-05** — Open $3M seed round reported ~65% committed; cumulative funding around $5.8M.
- **2026-02** — Founder profile: using sound waves to fight lung disease (Healthcare Brew).
- **2025-10** — Announced collaboration with Chiesi Farmaceutici on early detection of small airway disease.
- **2025-01** — Reported positive clinical results: 90% COPD diagnostic accuracy, 83% air-trapping detection; ATS Respiratory Innovation Summit success story.
- **2028** — Planned first commercial launch of the wearable in Colombia / Latin America (forward-looking).

## Links

- Website: https://samayhealth.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/samayhealth
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/respiralabs
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/samayhealth

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/samay
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-03