As an employer, managing employee benefits can be a daunting task.
The task requires you to balance the cost of benefits with the need to attract and retain talent while ensuring that your employees have access to the coverage they need to stay healthy and productive.
Fortunately, there are tools and services available to help make the process smoother and more efficient.
One such tool is Zorro.
Out of stealth
Based out of New York, Zorro specialised in optimising the health benefits experience for employees, employers, and brokers.
Today, the company announced that it has come out of stealth and also raised $11.5 million in a Seed funding round co-led by Pitango (also backed Protai) and 10D.
The company will use the funds to expand R&D efforts and scale customer operations further. Additionally, Zorro intends to invest in commercial operations and customer success.
To address broken healthcare
Zorro is a healthcare startup founded by Guy Ezekiel and Maya Perl to address the broken US healthcare system by making it more accessible and affordable.
The two met while working at the prestigious Israeli VC, Pitango, where Guy served as Managing Partner and Maya as Principal of Pitango VC, one of the largest Israeli VCs.
Guy, a medical doctor, left medicine right after medical school and built a successful track record as a repeat entrepreneur with successful exits. He spent several years as a Managing Partner at Pitango before deciding to take on the broken US Healthcare system in a new way.
Maya brought her account of recovering from a serious car accident, which led to extremely costly medical bills. Her experience fueled her desire to become an agent of change and help Americans have better healthcare choices.
Both Guy and Maya share a clear vision — no one should be financially overwhelmed to receive the healthcare they need.
Statistics show that many Americans are struggling because they are unable to afford the care they need and/or because they have the wrong health insurance plan that leaves them paying out of pocket for basic medical care.
Zorro is on a journey to change that!
Offers personalised healthcare approach
Zorro’s mission is to provide an end-to-end solution that optimises the employee, employer, and broker benefits experience.
Zorro provides employers with a comprehensive platform for managing benefits, offering a top-down predictable budget and benefits allowance per employee or group of employees.
By analysing employers’ benefit objectives, Zorro can create a customized benefits plan that meets the needs of both the employer and employees.
The platform offers an end-to-end insurance management solution that streamlines the process of managing benefits, from enrollment to claims processing. This eliminates the need for multiple systems and reduces administrative costs and errors.
In addition to providing benefits management services, Zorro also acts as a financial companion to employees.
By analysing employees’ healthcare needs, family situations, risk tolerance, and other personal characteristics, Zorro can generate a recommended benefit bundle consisting of health insurance, supplemental coverages, specialised digital health solutions, and other financial value-add services.
“Zorro sits at the exciting intersection of the healthcare and financial sectors, and we’re proud to have developed a technology that makes offering employee health insurance plans more transparent, cost-effective, and personalized,” said Guy Ezekiel, CEO and co-founder of Zorro. “Our solution flips the outdated health benefits model upside down and gives employers predictability while providing employees with the coverage that best fits their needs. The multi-disciplinary expertise that exists among the Zorro team members, including in healthcare, insurtech, software, and big data, is a unique asset that allows us to accomplish our important mission of improving access to quality and affordable healthcare.”
Committed to increasing women employees
Currently, the company employs 15 full-time team members, including first-class experts from diverse industries, including data science, software engineering, product development, insurance brokerage, and operations.
The company’s office is located in the US (commercial) and Israel (R&D). Zorro says that one in three employees are women and is committed to increasing the number of women on its team as it grows and scales its operations.
“Zorro’s founders have leveraged their strong backgrounds in healthcare, financial investments, and technology to address an unmet need in the market,” said Rami Kalish, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Pitango. “This new model that simplifies the employee health benefits selection process will undoubtedly see quick adoption by small to medium-sized businesses due to its ease of use and immediate return on investment.”
