Why We Started Zorro

Zorro’s origin story began with restlessness.

We (Guy and Maya) met as two HealthTech investors at Pitango, one of Israel’s largest VC funds. We loved our work, but we also secretly wanted to be back in the founder’s arena — building a revolutionary product ourselves.

For me - Guy - this was part of a lifelong entrepreneurial journey that always had me looking for the next mountain to climb. I am fortunate to have led multiple innovative healthcare companies that made a huge positive impact. But until Zorro, my companies built niche products that touched a select number of patients. I wanted to build something that could touch anyone who needs health services and that is a game-changing, category-defining product.

For me - Maya - my interest in fixing healthcare is both professional and deeply personal. Like far too many people, I know what it’s like to struggle to pay for healthcare. As a young adult, I was involved in a serious car accident and received a $100K medical bill after being hospitalized. I also witnessed family members lose jobs and health coverage during the 2008 financial crisis. These experiences lit a fire in me to make healthcare affordable and accessible for all Americans.

Both of us had a unique backstory, and we bonded over our mutual desire to tackle big problems and not settle for the status quo. That’s how Zorro’s mission to address healthcare’s biggest issues—affordability and access to care—was born.

Zorro’s Vision: A Healthcare Financial Companion for the Future

We quickly realized that better financial services were key to solving the issue of affordability.

Just think…there are specialized financial services for every other high-cost, high-importance area of life: funding an education, buying a home or car, or saving for the future. But what about healthcare? Over half of Americans struggle with healthcare costs, but no financial support system exists to help them. We want to change that.

We want Zorro to become the trusted financial companion that helps millions of Americans find the right healthcare solutions at the right cost.

Where We’re Starting: Employer-Sponsored Health Benefits

The first healthcare-related financial decision most Americans make is their insurance.
And employers are at the forefront of this decision, given that most Americans get their insurance through work.

That’s why our product roadmap begins with a health benefits solution for employers. We’ve built a platform that allows employers to offer personalized health benefits to each employee—and give them coverage that actually fits their individual needs. Our platform is seamless to administer, and it provides much-needed transparency and cost predictability to employers, as well.

(Want to go deeper on the current problems with employer-sponsored benefits and our vision for fixing the system? Read our post here.)

Building an Insurance Broker with Superpowers

We are fortunate to have found the perfect CTO to join us on our mission. Elad Shaham previously served as Director of Engineering at Lemonade, the leading insurtech company, and he shares our passion for taking big swings to fix big problems.

Elad and his team are leveraging sophisticated insurtech infrastructure and advanced machine learning to bring our vision to life. We like to say that Zorro’s platform will be like having a broker with superpowers. Zorro will able to assess a breadth of personal information for each individual, contextualize it with millions of data points about insurance coverage and pricing, and recommend personalized insurance and financial products.

What’s Next

We are extremely excited to announce our $12M funding round, co-led by Pitango and 10D and with participation from an array of incredible angel investors who are CEOs and leaders in the healthcare, benefits and fintech industries.

We consider this an act of trust in our plan to build a new category and rethink employer-sponsored healthcare spending, and we are moving quickly to execute on this vision. Our product has been built in record time, and we are launching it with select design partners in several territories this fall.

We are as restless as ever, and we can’t wait to continue growing our impact.

If you’re interested in learning more about our platform or joining our team–contact us! We can’t wait to connect with more passionate fighters for a better, healthier future.