# Co-founder and CEO @ Colabra

Period: 2021 to present

Building Colabra from pharma and scientific R&D software into AI for buy-side M&A diligence. Product, sales, fundraising, hiring, and building a go-to-market motion precise enough for high-stakes buyers.

What has stayed constant is the kind of AI we want to build: structured, auditable, and usable on work that cannot tolerate hand-waving.

Philip and I met in fall 2020 at an On Deck hacker house and started building together almost immediately. We were both repeat founders and both drawn to problems where messy source material and real-world decisions meet. Over the life of the company we raised about $3 million, iterated through half a dozen product shapes, pivoted from pharma R&D into buy-side M&A diligence, and built an original founder-led sales motion from scratch.

## Selected coverage

### Wall Street Journal - venture investors back scientific software startup Colabra

Date: Sep 9, 2021 - Wall Street Journal
Coverage of Colabra following its early fundraising.
Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/venture-investors-back-scientific-software-startup-colabra-11631187000

### Forbes - This Startup Just Raised $1.5 Million To Help Scientists Share Their Data

Date: Sep 13, 2021 - Forbes
Feature by Jair Hilburn on Colabra and its $1.5 million raise.
Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jairhilburn/2021/09/13/this-startup-just-raised-15-million-to-help-scientists-share-their-data/

### Green.org Person of the Week

Date: Nov 17, 2021 - Green.org
Profile interview about my background and work.
Link: https://green.org/2021/11/17/green-org-person-of-the-week-aoi-senju/

### On Deck Founders feature - Colabra Raises $1.5 Million

Date: 2021 - On Deck
Feature on Colabra and the early financing round.
Link: https://joinodf.com/stories/colabra

### On Deck Founders - Top Co-founders: Aoi Senju and Philip Seifi

Date: 2021 - On Deck
Feature on the Colabra founding team.
Link: https://joinodf.com/top-co-founders-list/colabra

## Talks and appearances

### PEI NEXUS 2026

Date: Feb 25, 2026 - PEI NEXUS
Pitch slot in the High Growth Sectors room covering technology, healthcare, and energy transition.
Link: https://live.peievents.com/nexus/speakers/aoi-senju

### ACG Silicon Valley Tech Conference

Date: Feb 2026 - ACG Silicon Valley
Startup showcase table plus a short main-stage pitch for Colabra.
Link: coming soon

### ProVisors AI Affinity Group

Date: Jan 12, 2026 - ProVisors
Speaking slot on AI in M&A and how to evaluate workflow tools in high-stakes diligence.
Link: coming soon

### IBA monthly meeting

Date: Apr 8, 2026 - International Business Advisors
Presenter on AI workflows and practical adoption in diligence work.
Link: coming soon

### ACG AI "Touching Technology" event

Date: Apr 2026 - San Francisco
Organizer and presenter for an ACG event featuring AI companies demoing to private-equity attendees and founders.
Link: coming soon

### ACG M&A West

Date: May 2026 - Napa
Planning committee member and organizer of the AI panel / fireside chat content for the conference.
Link: coming soon

## Case studies and product signal

### Gladstone Institutes case study

Date: 2024 - Colabra
Public case study from the earlier R&D chapter, useful as evidence that teams were getting real value from the product before the pivot.
Link: https://www.colabra.ai/case-studies/gladstone-institutes

## Writing

### I've been building with LLMs since March 2023

Date: 2026
The full arc of how Colabra adopted LLMs, from the first GPT ticket in March 2023 through hallucination fixes, vector search, the pivot, and prompt cache optimization today.
Link: post-llms-since-march-2023.html

### How our pitch changed when our buyers got smarter

Date: 2026
How the sales pitch evolved from feature descriptions to persona-native language as M&A buyers became more sophisticated.
Link: post-buyers-got-smarter.html

### The founder's AI stack: how I actually use it

Date: 2026
A detailed look at the skills, integrations, and workflow I use to get real leverage from AI as a founder.
Link: post-founders-ai-stack.html

### What I was wrong about

Date: 2026
Eight bets I got wrong building Colabra, and what each one cost.
Link: post-what-i-was-wrong-about.html

### How I run GTM and sales with AI

Date: 2026
The specific system behind outbound, meeting prep, follow-ups, and re-engagement, all grounded in transcripts and run through custom AI skills.
Link: post-gtm-and-sales-with-ai.html