Maria Artunduaga
Maria Artunduaga left her career in plastic surgery to found a medical technology company to prevent misdiagnosis-related deaths.
Her company Samay was inspired by her grandmother Sylvia’s fatal struggle with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This experience led her to invent Sylvee, an affordable, non-invasive device that uses acoustics to monitor lung function, and to develop an AI-based platform for people with respiratory health issues.
“I would say that resilience is just as important as innovation: Every obstacle — regulatory, financial, or technical — is a learning opportunity, and trusting your team and asking for support early on makes all the difference,” Artunduaga told VentureWell.
Under her leadership, Samay has grown from a startup with one prototype to a global leader in medical innovation with 18 patents and 19 pending approval. The company won Colombia’s Best Startup (2025, 2026), ATS Success Story (2025), the Global MedTech Innovator Award (2024), and was included on Inc. Magazine’s Female Founder List (2025) and Bloomberg’s 100 Innovators in LatAm (2024). Artunduaga has also received over 50 prizes for her groundbreaking work as a physician-scientist and inventor.
