By Erin Brodwin
Health benefits provider Zorro raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Entrée Capital, CEO Guy Ezekiel tells Axios exclusively.
Why it matters: As employers wrestle with rising health plan costs, individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements (ICHRAs) are gaining steam.
Driving the news: Launched in 2020, ICHRAs were enabled by a Trump-era rule letting employers reimburse employees tax-free for individual health insurance instead of offering group plans.
After a slow start, rule clarifications and compliance tools made them more accessible to midsized employers.
Follow the money: Existing backers Pitango and 10D joined the round, which will be used to scale operations and improve support for employer.
The Series A brings Zorro to $31.5 million total raised. The company is not yet profitable.
How it works: New York City-based Zorro replaces traditional group plans with defined-contribution models.
Employers set a budget; employees use Zorro's AI engine to select personalized plans, and brokers get real-time tools to compare group plans versus ICHRA-based options.
When it onboards an employer, Zorro asks them to send their benefits roster from the previous year, asks about quality and budget priorities for the upcoming year, and helps predict what benefits employees might want next.
Zorro has "several thousand" lives on the platform, per Ezekiel.
Between the lines: Zorro's pitch hinges not just on cost control but on its ability to shift complex decision-making from HR to software — claiming that 75% of users enroll without human help.
What they're saying: "We're giving the employer a line of sight to how his upcoming year is going to look," says Ezekiel.
Reality check: While ICHRAs are gaining traction, they remain a small fraction of the employer market.
Zorro's long-term success depends on widespread broker adoption and employee trust in AI-led benefit decisions.
State of play: A February Bailey's report predicted the debut of several new ICHRA startups in 2025. Several others have secured recent funding.
Thatch in April raised $40 million in Series B funding led by Index Ventures.
Remodel Health last December collected more than $100 million in a round led by Oak HC/FT and Hercules Capital.
Venteur ealth Insurance in August 2023 raised a $7.6 million seed.
The bottom line: "Although some observers have written ICHRA off as a VC-fueled bubble, we think ignoring this nascent market would be unwise," Bailey's James Metcalf and Rebecca Springer wrote in the report
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