Saykara
AcquiredSeattle, US · Founded 2015 · Delaware corporation · 5 known investors
Saykara built Kara, a voice- and AI-powered assistant that turns physician-patient conversations into clinical documentation.
Also known as Kara · Saykara, Inc.
Founders & leadership
Saykara was founded in 2015 by HARJINDER SINGH SANDHU.
Board
Investors · 5
Also in the syndicate · 1
Reported raises · per SEC filings
Form D private placements$5M disclosed across 3 of 4 rounds · 2016–2018
▶$2.2MraisedJul 2018 · 7 investors · Other TechnologyRule 506(b)
- Ralph PascualyDirector
- Kulmeet SinghDirector
- Harjinder SandhuExecutive Officer, Director, Promoter
- Tim PorterDirector
- Offering amount
- $5M
- Amount sold
- $2.2M
- First sale
- Jun 2018
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware, 2015
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
▶$2.5MraisedJul 2016 · 13 investors · Other TechnologyRule 506(b)
- Harjinder Singh SandhuExecutive Officer, Director, Promoter
- Kulmeet SinghDirector
- Offering amount
- $2.5M
- Amount sold
- $2.5M
- First sale
- Jul 2016
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware, 2015
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
▶$200KraisedJan 2016 · 3 investors · Other TechnologyRule 506(b)
- HARJINDER SINGH SANDHUExecutive Officer, Director
- KULMEET SINGHDirector
- Offering amount
- $500K
- Amount sold
- $200K
- Minimum investment
- $50K
- First sale
- Jan 2016
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware, 2015
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
Source: SEC EDGAR Form D. Amounts as filed; amended filings shown once at their latest values.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Saykara was a Seattle-based health technology company that developed Kara, a voice- and AI-powered virtual assistant for clinicians. The mobile application interpreted physician-patient conversations and converted the salient content into clinical notes, orders, referrals and other structured data destined for electronic health record (EHR) systems, so that physicians did not need to perform manual data entry during a visit. The product was positioned as specialty-agnostic and delivered as a software-as-a-service offering.
The product evolved from an assistant that clinicians interacted with by voice to a fully ambient, autonomous assistant capable of documenting an entire doctor-patient encounter without interruption. Saykara released Kara 2.0 in June 2019 and introduced its ambient, autonomous assistant in March 2020. Marketing materials cited reductions in charting time of up to 70% and improvements in documentation quality of roughly 20%.
In February 2021, Nuance Communications acquired Saykara, with the founder and team joining Nuance's research and development organization; Nuance was subsequently part of Microsoft.
Founding story
Saykara was founded in Seattle in 2015 by Harjinder Sandhu, PhD, a serial entrepreneur and machine learning veteran. Sandhu had previously co-founded the healthcare startup MedRemote, which was sold to Nuance in 2005, after which he spent five years at Nuance as vice president and chief technologist of healthcare R&D.
Business model
Saykara offered its voice assistant as a scalable software-as-a-service solution to healthcare providers, applicable across medical specialties and deployable from independent practices up to enterprise health systems.
Subscription-style software-as-a-service delivery of the Kara assistant to physician practices and healthcare organizations.
Traction
By September 2018 the product was commercially available and live at several mid-size and large healthcare systems nationwide. Customers spanned independent physician practices, hospitals, health systems, ambulatory surgery centers and urgent care centers. The company employed roughly 30 people at the time of its 2021 acquisition.
Latest developments
Nuance Communications announced its acquisition of Saykara on February 8, 2021; Harjinder Sandhu and the Saykara team joined Nuance's research and development group and deal terms were not disclosed. Nuance was later part of Microsoft.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Saykara operated in the clinical documentation and ambient clinical intelligence segment alongside companies such as Suki, Augmedix, Robin Healthcare and Sopris Health. Nuance described Saykara's technology as complementary to its own conversational AI and ambient clinical intelligence portfolio.
The assistant was designed to document an entire doctor-patient conversation without interrupting the encounter, was specialty-agnostic, and required no manual data entry during the visit.
Technology
An AI and speech platform that captures physician-patient conversations through a mobile app and interprets them to generate clinical notes, orders, referrals and other EHR data. The offering advanced to fully ambient, autonomous operation covering the whole patient encounter. Reported web technologies included Amazon Web Services, React, jQuery, Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics.
Go-to-market
Direct commercial sales to healthcare providers, with early deployments at several mid-size and large health systems nationwide and expansion toward larger health systems and integrated EHR deployments; a strategic investor base included NewYork-Presbyterian.
Physicians and clinicians, served through independent physician practices, hospitals, health systems, ambulatory surgery centers and urgent care centers in the United States.
Geography
Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with customers across the United States.
History
Founded in 2015, Saykara raised $5 million in a round announced in September 2018 led by SpringRock Ventures, at which point the product was commercially available and live at several mid-size and large health systems. It released Kara 2.0 in June 2019, hired Dr. Graham Hughes as president in October 2019, launched a fully ambient and autonomous virtual assistant in March 2020, and added Joy Efron as VP of Marketing in June 2020. By early 2021 it had raised roughly $10 million in total and employed about 30 people. Nuance Communications announced its acquisition of the company on February 8, 2021.
Compiled by commissioned research from 5 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 6
launches, deals, and filingsNuance Communications (NASDAQ: NUAN) announced the acquisition of Saykara, Inc., a startup building a mobile AI assistant for clinical documentation. Harjinder Sandhu and the Saykara team joined Nuance's research and development organization. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Saykara appointed Joy Efron as Vice President of Marketing.
Saykara introduced a fully ambient and autonomous AI-powered virtual assistant designed to support physicians through all aspects of the patient encounter.
Saykara announced Kara 2.0, an AI-powered healthcare assistant intended to simplify the clinical documentation process for physicians.
In conjunction with the $5M funding round, Kirsten Morbeck, Managing Director of SpringRock Ventures, joined Saykara's board of directors.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
Legal entities · 1
corporate structureIn the news
▸Research sources · 5
primary sources listed
- Saykara - SpringRockspringrockventures.com · web
5 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Saykara do?
- Saykara built Kara, a voice- and AI-powered assistant that turns physician-patient conversations into clinical documentation.
- Who founded Saykara?
- Saykara was founded by HARJINDER SINGH SANDHU in 2015.
- Who are Saykara's investors?
- Saykara's investors include Elevate Innovation Partners, Madrona Venture Group, SPRINGROCK VENTURES, Mithera Capital.
- How much funding has Saykara raised?
- Saykara has disclosed $5M raised across 3 of its 4 known rounds.
- Where is Saykara headquartered?
- Saykara is headquartered in Seattle, US.