Health IT · Clinical trial analytics
Comprehend Systems
A Y Combinator company that sold software for watching clinical trials while they were still running. It sold just over $64 million of stock under Regulation D, then merged into Saama Technologies on August 12, 2019. The price has never been disclosed.
Four year studies, seven year old software
In February 2011 a TechCrunch reporter asked Rick Morrison why anyone needed another analytics tool. He answered with arithmetic anyone who has worked inside a drug program recognises.
“A clinical study lasts four years, and who uses software that’s seven years old? By default you’re going to have to interface a lot of stuff,” he said.
That is the business in one sentence. A trial outlives the software bought to run it. The data capture system, the trial management system, the safety database and the lab feeds were each chosen at a different moment by a different department, and none agree on what a patient record looks like. Morrison told VentureBeat three years later that a sponsor could wait a month after a trial started to learn how it was going.
The gap it was aimed at
Comprehend did not replace those systems. It sat on top, left the data in place, and answered questions across all of it at once. The pitch was aimed at one person: the clinical operations executive running twelve studies at four contract research organisations with no screen showing which is about to miss a milestone.
Peter Nieh of Lightspeed framed the market when his firm led the Series B. “Life science companies spend more than $4 billion to bring a single product to market, largely because they cannot access the information they needed to manage their clinical trials,” he said.
By 2017 it had a name to match, the Clinical Intelligence Suite, and a list of jobs: centralized monitoring, risk monitoring, CRO oversight, data review and medical monitoring.
Two people who had seen the inside
Morrison and Jud Gardner were software engineers who had spent years in clinical software. Morrison had architected clinical analytics tools for a decade, including tools used by the FDA. Gardner had been a pharmaceutical consultant and, before that, a developer at Byram Labs.
They started with plane tickets, not a demo. “But before we did so, both my co-founder and I went to three or four conferences, and paid for it out of pocket. It was like $15,000, $20,000 plus each, just in airfare and other stuff, just doing our research,” Morrison told Startup School Radio in 2015. They had been thinking about it since 2009 and incorporated in Delaware the next year.
How lean the early years were is on the record in an unusual place. A California appellate opinion, recounting trial evidence, states that when Comprehend hired its first business development executive in 2012 it had closed no sales and had no referenceable customer, and that the founders had limited capital and no background in sales.
The money, and then the door
Y Combinator took them in Winter 2011. A $1.2 million seed closed that November with Y Combinator, Start Fund, SV Angel, Yuri Milner, Paul Buchheit, Garry Tan and Crosslink Capital. Sequoia led an $8.4 million Series A in mid 2013, with angels including Box founder Aaron Levie. Lightspeed led $21 million in August 2014. Eminence Capital, a hedge fund managing about $6.6 billion, led $15 million in February 2017 and took a board seat.
Then the announcements stopped and the filings did not. The Series C offering was amended twice more, to $24.1 million in June 2018 and $29.7 million that October, each filing carrying the same first sale date of January 20, 2017. A separate $5 million came in early 2019.
Five months later, on August 12, 2019, Comprehend Systems, Inc. merged into Saama Technologies, Inc. The patent office assignment record carries the date. Saama announced it the next day and gave no terms. Morrison, by then chairman rather than chief executive, supplied a quote. Clinical Research News added a line the release did not: “Morrison will not be joining the new, combined company.”
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Patents | One family, priority Sep 30, 2011, assigned by Rick Morrison, Jud Gardner and Matthew Saffer. Five US grants to Comprehend between Dec 2014 and Oct 2018, ending with US10114879B2. A sixth, US10901961B2, issued Jan 26, 2021 to Saama Technologies, Inc. | Public record |
| Capital raised | Four Regulation D offerings under CIK 0001580984, eight filings, Jul 2013 to Mar 2019. Sold, per the latest amendment of each: $8,496,955, $21,022,131, $29,664,929 and $5,000,000, for $64,184,015. | Public record |
| Acquisition and date | USPTO assignment reel 050117 records a merger, assignor Comprehend Systems, Inc., owner Saama Technologies, Inc., effective Aug 12, 2019. Outsourcing-Pharma reported the deal “closed on Monday, August 12”. Announced Aug 13, 2019. | Public record |
| Price | Clinical Research News: “Financial details were not disclosed.” No SEC filing carries a number. | Not found |
| Named customers | VentureBeat, Aug 2014: Boston Scientific, Karyopharm, MERGE, Atlantic Research Group and Versartis had begun using the platform that year. DP Clinical, a Rockville CRO, announced a monitoring deployment on Aug 12, 2019. | Independent |
| Customer base as claimed | Feb 2017: representation from the “top 5 CROs, Top 10 Pharma and Top 5 Life Sciences companies”. None named, no count given. | Company-stated |
| Total funding as claimed | $44.5 million, stated Feb 2017. Form D amounts sold through the May 2017 amendment total $44,646,406, a match. The $19.5 million sold after that was never announced. | Later filings differ |
| Series B date | Y Combinator’s December 2015 post says Comprehend “announced in August 2015 that it had raised $21 million in Series B funding”. VentureBeat and the Form D place it in August 2014. | Differs from the record |
| Litigation | Lacagnina v. Comprehend Systems, Inc., No. A147559, decided Aug 3, 2018. A jury awarded a former vice president of business development $556,446, including $226,446 for fraud. The trial court struck the fraud award; the Court of Appeal reinstated it. | Public record |
| Peer-reviewed work | No paper naming the company was found. A 2020 outsourcing oversight paper lists an author “Morrison R” with no affiliation given, so the identification is unconfirmed. | Not confirmed |
| The brand today | The comprehend.com hostname did not resolve on Sep 23, 2026; the site survives only in the Internet Archive. Saama’s site that day names Data Hub, Smart Data Quality and Patient Insights, and no Comprehend product. | Public record |
Read plainly: the technology, the money and the exit date are documented. Missing is any public measure of how the business was doing when it sold. No revenue, no named customer after 2014, no price. The clearest signal is the shape of the last two years: a $15 million round that quietly grew to $29.7 million, a $5 million top up in February 2019, a merger in August.
What to watch
- Whether the price is ever disclosed. Neither party gave one and no filing carries it.
- The patent family. Priority runs from September 30, 2011, so the grants expire in the early 2030s.
- Saama’s own ownership. Carlyle led an investment of up to $430 million for a majority stake in October 2021, with Amgen Ventures, Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, McKesson Ventures, Northpond Ventures, Pfizer Ventures, Intermountain Ventures and Population Health Partners. USPTO records show conversion to Saama Technologies, LLC on November 19, 2021 and a Hercules Capital security interest on June 30, 2023.
- Whether any Comprehend-branded product is still sold. Saama’s site does not list one.
In their words
“A clinical study lasts four years, and who uses software that’s seven years old? By default you’re going to have to interface a lot of stuff”
Rick Morrison, co-founder and CEO, TechCrunch, February 2011 · Independent
“But before we did so, both my co-founder and I went to three or four conferences, and paid for it out of pocket. It was like $15,000, $20,000 plus each, just in airfare and other stuff, just doing our research.”
Rick Morrison, Startup School Radio, Y Combinator, December 2015 · Interview
“We are thrilled to be positioned to grow the customer base that already includes representation from the top 5 CROs, Top 10 Pharma and Top 5 Life Sciences companies.”
Rick Morrison, CEO, Series C release, February 2017 · Company release
“Many of us have had friends and loved ones who could have benefited from drugs and devices if they had only come out sooner.”
Brett Flinchum, vice president and general manager, Comprehend, August 2019 · Company blog
“The combined 30-plus years of experience of these two companies as data analytics innovators provides exciting opportunities to speed biopharma’s development of new therapeutics and to have broader industry reach.”
Rick Morrison, founder and chairman, Comprehend, August 2019 · Acquirer release
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordForm D filings, Comprehend Systems, Inc., CIK 0001580984
- Public recordUS10114879B2, family and assignment history
- Public recordUSPTO assignment reels 042169, 050117, 064165, 064127
- Public recordLacagnina v. Comprehend Systems, Inc., No. A147559
- IndependentComprehend Systems Wants To Make Data Analysis Less Of A Pain
- IndependentComprehend (YC W11) raises $8.4M Series A from Sequoia
- IndependentComprehend Systems raises $21M for clinical-trials data platform
- IndependentSaama acquires Comprehend, combining strengths
- IndependentSaama Technologies Acquires Comprehend Systems
- InterviewRick Morrison on the Importance of Asking Questions
- CompanyComprehend Systems Secures $1.2MM in Seed Funding
- CompanyComprehend Systems Closes $15 Million Series C Funding
- CompanyComprehend Joins Forces with Saama
- AcquirerSaama and Comprehend to Form Preeminent Clinical Analytics Platform
- AcquirerCarlyle growth investment of up to $430 Million in Saama
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
