The Entire History of Collate, I guess…
TL;DR: Collate began as a university idea to unify scattered communication tools, evolved into an AI-native platform for clinics, and is now moving into its first office in Istanbul after years of fully remote, globally distributed work.
Hi all, I wanted to create this blog post to tell the story of Collate, so far.
During university, myself (Cengizhan Dogan) and Baris Gurel were participating in Hyperloop alongside 70+ engineering students. Communication was an absolute nightmare. There were 10+ comm channels in use at a time (MS Teams, Whatsapp, Email, Phone, iMessage etc.). We had the brilliant idea of eliminating redundant comm channels and unifying everything in one AI native app. This idea later morphed into Collate where we are now specializing in clinics. Along the way Bartu Koksal and Bora Kaymakcioglu joined us. Also we had massive guidance and help from our mentors Cem Unsal and Orhun Muradoglu.
Working was very difficult since we were all around the globe. Bartu at Illinois, Baris at Zurich, myself and Bora at Istanbul… We had to work together despite massive time zone differences (especially with Bartu) and were confined to online meetings.
But we were all obsessed with this. I would (and still do) think about Collate while having breakfast, while getting a coffee at starbucks, while driving… I even dream about Collate (seriously).
Cengizhan at the Cengizhan street sign
During the christmas break of 2025 we managed to meet up in Istanbul with Bora and Baris however Bartu had to stay in the US for his graduation. We made the most of our time and we are now moving into an office space in Nisantasi, Istanbul. Super stoked about what the future holds…
-Cengizhan