Mexico faces significant challenges when it comes to health. The country has one of the lowest spendings on health in the OECD, and one of the highest rates of obesity and heart-attack mortality, only 10% of the Mexican population has private health insurance and its poor access to healthcare coverage is evidenced by the fact that 66% of private healthcare expenses in the country are paid out of pocket.
It took an issue as big and relevant as this for Arturo Sánchez Correa, Manuel Andere and Sebastián Jiménez-Bonnet to return to Mexico. After going abroad to study at UCL, Stanford and Harvard and working at Index Ventures, Google and Patreon, the three friends from ITAM returned to their home country determined to address this by co-founding Sofía in 2018.
Sofía is a seamless healthcare system, powered by software and data, and built on a robust insurance foundation in order to offer its end clients the best integrated healthcare system in Mexico at an affordable price. But the most important part in the company’s business model is that Sofía delivers its customers “a plan they will actually use”. We love that bold and purposeful mission.
In Mexico, the vast majority of health insurance plans only cover expenses above a certain – and high – threshold (around MXN 8,000 pesos, or €450), which end up being valid only for big medical events and not for regular medical consultations and preventive medicine. In Sofía’s case, that threshold is lowered to zero, with its end clients (called soci@s) getting fully covered.
This value proposition is possible by the company offering an end-to-end solution: from the selling of the insurance plan to the delivery of primary healthcare and derivation to the proper specialists. By leveraging AI and data analytics both on the user-facing front as well as in the treatment optimisation and tailoring for each disease, Sofía can have costs at bay with a great estimate of loss ratios and costs. Always keeping a great customer service as their leitmotif.
Sofía is also a full stack insurance company, having obtained the Mexican insurance company license (“Seguro de salud” license). This not only renders it a significant regulatory moat but also allows it to underwrite its own insurance policies, a significant part of the business model that ends up allowing the company to issue zero threshold healthcare plans in a profitable fashion.
Through the app, customers can access telemedicine, review their previous in-person and online consultations, have their prescriptions at hand and benefit from other digital health solutions anywhere, anytime. Through its single EMR (electronic medical record), everyone involved in the customer’s patient journey has access to his or her complete and thorough information, giving all healthcare professionals a full grasp of the situation and improving the quality of the services rendered.
This complete platform creates a data moat which allows Sofía to ride the AI-wave. Propelled by the technical and passionate background of the three co-founders, the company has been agile in implementing AI-powered initiatives to increase both efficiency and quality of the product and services rendered, giving the company an NPS above the 95th percentile for health insurance plans. In fact, when talking to Sofía’s customers, we found a level of happiness and loyalty that just makes you want to work with the company. One of them thought about changing the healthcare insurance provider but ended up having to face an incredibly large group of employees demanding Sofía.
Finally, by focusing its sales engine on the SMBs market, which is a play we are familiar with at Kfund, Sofía faces little competition with the big Mexican insurance incumbents, more focused in the larger, enterprise-sized companies.
We are thrilled to partner with Sofía’s founders and with Index Ventures, Kaszek and IDB Labs in Kfund’s first deal in Mexico and third in Latin America, deepening our commitment and bullishness on the region.
Sofía is a great example of the companies we look for. For more information, reach out to Miguel (marias@kfund.vc), Pablo (pablo@kfund.vc) or Gustavo (guribas@kfund.vc).
Mexico faces significant challenges when it comes to health. The country has one of the lowest spendings on health in the OECD, and one of the highest rates of obesity and heart-attack mortality, only 10% of the Mexican population has private health insurance and its poor access to healthcare coverage is evidenced by the fact that 66% of private healthcare expenses in the country are paid out of pocket.
It took an issue as big and relevant as this for Arturo Sánchez Correa, Manuel Andere and Sebastián Jiménez-Bonnet to return to Mexico. After going abroad to study at UCL, Stanford and Harvard and working at Index Ventures, Google and Patreon, the three friends from ITAM returned to their home country determined to address this by co-founding Sofía in 2018.
Sofía is a seamless healthcare system, powered by software and data, and built on a robust insurance foundation in order to offer its end clients the best integrated healthcare system in Mexico at an affordable price. But the most important part in the company’s business model is that Sofía delivers its customers “a plan they will actually use”. We love that bold and purposeful mission.
In Mexico, the vast majority of health insurance plans only cover expenses above a certain – and high – threshold (around MXN 8,000 pesos, or €450), which end up being valid only for big medical events and not for regular medical consultations and preventive medicine. In Sofía’s case, that threshold is lowered to zero, with its end clients (called soci@s) getting fully covered.
This value proposition is possible by the company offering an end-to-end solution: from the selling of the insurance plan to the delivery of primary healthcare and derivation to the proper specialists. By leveraging AI and data analytics both on the user-facing front as well as in the treatment optimisation and tailoring for each disease, Sofía can have costs at bay with a great estimate of loss ratios and costs. Always keeping a great customer service as their leitmotif.
Sofía is also a full stack insurance company, having obtained the Mexican insurance company license (“Seguro de salud” license). This not only renders it a significant regulatory moat but also allows it to underwrite its own insurance policies, a significant part of the business model that ends up allowing the company to issue zero threshold healthcare plans in a profitable fashion.
Through the app, customers can access telemedicine, review their previous in-person and online consultations, have their prescriptions at hand and benefit from other digital health solutions anywhere, anytime. Through its single EMR (electronic medical record), everyone involved in the customer’s patient journey has access to his or her complete and thorough information, giving all healthcare professionals a full grasp of the situation and improving the quality of the services rendered.
This complete platform creates a data moat which allows Sofía to ride the AI-wave. Propelled by the technical and passionate background of the three co-founders, the company has been agile in implementing AI-powered initiatives to increase both efficiency and quality of the product and services rendered, giving the company an NPS above the 95th percentile for health insurance plans. In fact, when talking to Sofía’s customers, we found a level of happiness and loyalty that just makes you want to work with the company. One of them thought about changing the healthcare insurance provider but ended up having to face an incredibly large group of employees demanding Sofía.
Finally, by focusing its sales engine on the SMBs market, which is a play we are familiar with at Kfund, Sofía faces little competition with the big Mexican insurance incumbents, more focused in the larger, enterprise-sized companies.
We are thrilled to partner with Sofía’s founders and with Index Ventures, Kaszek and IDB Labs in Kfund’s first deal in Mexico and third in Latin America, deepening our commitment and bullishness on the region.
Sofía is a great example of the companies we look for. For more information, reach out to Miguel (marias@kfund.vc), Pablo (pablo@kfund.vc) or Gustavo (guribas@kfund.vc).
