Cero YC Application

Summer 2021Active

Cero went through Y Combinator in the Summer 2021 batch as a B2B company. Below: what the company does, who founded it, and its application to YC, reconstructed question by question in the real YC form.

YC batch: Summer 2021
Industry: B2B
Team size: 10
Status: Active
Launched: 2021

Founders

Felipe RodríguezFounder
Jorge PérezFounder
Mauricio QuezadaFounder

What Cero does

At Cero, we solve specific coordination tasks between hospitals and patients, such as appointment confirmations and last minute cancellations, by automatically communicating with patients over WhatsApp. For example, a patient can confirm and reschedule their appointment without needing to call anyone. Almost half of the medical appointments in Latin America are missed because patients simply do not show up. This ranges from missing a regular dentist check to missing an expensive MRI scan. With increasing pressure to improve access to care in developing countries, optimizing communication and coordination with patients is a key task to achieve. This is a massive problem especially in places where most people don't know how to effectively use self-service mediums (or are too busy to use them). We bootstrapped the company and we are profitable. As of August 2021 we have $97K in monthly revenue from 15 clients with a CMRG of 20% in the last year. We have 100% logo retention and we grow with our clients. We are currently coordinating over 600,000 medical appointments every month, just in Chile. This problem represents a $3.5B market opportunity in Latin America only. Latin America has 650M people, each one having an average of 3 medical consultations per year. We charge for every time we effectively communicate with a patient. We plan to handle several coordination interactions with every patient for each consultation, which considers a roadmap of scheduling, confirming, booking, reimbursements, payments, among others. We are a team mixing strong knowledge about the healthcare industry with deep technical skills. Felipe (CEO) is a former dentist that has led deep changes in healthcare payments in Chile. Mauricio (CTO) and Jorge (R&D), both PhD in Computer Science, led the creation of the most advanced Spanish Language Neural Network used daily by scientists and practitioners in LatAm (BETO: Spanish BERT). In a weekend project, Mauricio and Jorge automated the communication with students attending a summer school obtaining impressive engagement. Felipe was struggling with contacting his patients to coordinate appointments, and saw a big opportunity in this technology. The three together have designed and run a solution that as of 2021 is coordinating over 600,000 patients per month in their home country, Chile.

Cero's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Cero, Summer 2021 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Cero

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

Automated hospital-patient communication in Latam

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

We built an automated communication platform that manages coordination tasks between hospitals and patients in Latin America. It handles appointment confirmations, last-minute cancellations, and rescheduling via WhatsApp conversations so patients don't need to call clinics. The system uses NLP to handle patient replies in Spanish efficiently.

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

We live in Santiago, Chile and operate remotely from there. After YC, we plan to continue being based in Santiago while expanding regionally.

Explain your decision regarding location.

We are based in Santiago because it's our home and where our network in healthcare is strongest. Latin America is the primary market, and being in Chile keeps us close to our first clients and users.

21 more answers in the full application

Founders, Progress, Idea, Equity, Curious, Batch Preference are in the full version. Create a free account to open it in YC Insights, next to every other YC batch.

See full application

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the real Cero YC application?

No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from Cero's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like Cero would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.