Zocdoc, the New York healthcare booking marketplace, has acquired Sohar Health, a startup that sells software for checking a patient's insurance coverage. The companies announced the deal on October 14, 2026, and said it had already closed on October 2. Zocdoc did not disclose the price or other terms.
It is the first acquisition in Zocdoc's history. The company has operated for nearly 20 years without buying another business, according to the announcement and press coverage of the deal.
Sohar will keep its name, its products and its customer relationships, and will keep operating without disruption, the companies said. They added that Sohar plans to keep building its insurance capabilities and growing its business, while Zocdoc's users continue to benefit from the technology.
What Sohar Health built
Sohar Health was founded in 2023 by Ashish Mandavia, a physician who is its co-founder and chief executive, and Lucas Gordon, its co-founder and chief technology officer. The company is based in New York City.
Its product is a set of APIs that let other software find a patient's active insurance coverage, verify benefits, check whether a provider is in the patient's network, and estimate what care will cost. Sohar covers more than 1,000 U.S. insurers, according to AlleyWatch, which also named BetterHelp, Headway, Rula and Talkiatry among its customers.
Insurance checks sit in the middle of many booking flows. A patient who cannot tell whether a clinic accepts their plan may abandon the booking, and a provider that cannot confirm eligibility may face a denied claim later. Sohar's pitch is to automate those checks so they happen while the patient is still choosing a doctor.
“We know the Sohar technology and team well, and we share a desire to tackle complex, systemic problems”
Why Zocdoc is buying
Zocdoc and Sohar were not strangers. Zocdoc selected Sohar as its insurance technology partner in 2025, and the companies said at least a million patients have since verified their coverage while searching on Zocdoc. AlleyWatch put the figure at millions.
Oliver Kharraz, Zocdoc's founder and chief executive, said in the announcement: "We know the Sohar technology and team well, and we share a desire to tackle complex, systemic problems". Press coverage framed the purchase as a step beyond appointment booking toward broader infrastructure for getting patients into care.
Buying the supplier rather than continuing to license from it gives Zocdoc direct control of a component that touches every search where insurance matters. The announcement said the aim is to make coverage checks work more smoothly both on Zocdoc and across its network of partners.
The founders and the funding
Sohar raised $3.8 million in seed funding, according to AlleyWatch. Its investors were Kindred Capital, Concept Ventures, Rebel Fund and Y Combinator, which backed the company in its Summer 2023 batch. No later rounds were reported in the sources reviewed.
Mandavia said in the announcement that, as a physician, it has always baffled him that at the moment people need care most they have to face a gauntlet of insurance questions. Gordon described Sohar as a mission-driven company focused on making it easier for people to access care.
The announcement did not say how many people work at Sohar or whether its staff will be reorganised inside Zocdoc. It said only that Sohar will continue to operate under its own name.
What happens to customers
For Sohar's existing customers, which include other digital health companies that compete with parts of Zocdoc's business, the announcement promised continuity: the same products and the same relationships. It did not describe any changes to pricing, data handling or contracts.
Whether those customers stay comfortable with a competitor-owned supplier is an open question that the sources did not address. The deal terms, including price and form of payment, remain undisclosed, which limits how much can be said about the value Zocdoc placed on a company that had raised under $4 million.
