Founder Profile · Health Technology
Victor Zhou
The repeat founder rebuilding healthcare around the independent provider.
CO-FOUNDER & CEO · KLARITY HEALTH · SAN FRANCISCO
The repeat founder rebuilding healthcare around the independent provider.
Victor Zhou did not set out to run a healthcare company. He set out to fix a lopsided market, one where large, well-funded telehealth brands could reach patients easily and independent providers could not. Klarity Health is his answer, and it now stretches across more than 45 states.
The origin of Klarity Health traces back to 2020, a year when almost every routine of American life moved onto a screen. Care was no exception. Demand for mental health support surged as the country went into COVID-19 lockdowns, and telehealth, once a niche convenience, became the default. Zhou co-founded Klarity Health in that moment, with a specific idea about who the technology should serve.
Much of the healthcare industry was consolidating. Large platforms with substantial marketing budgets were capturing patients online, and the independent nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and small practices that make up much of American care were being left behind. They had the licenses and the clinical skill. What they lacked was reach.
Zhou built Klarity as a marketplace to close that gap. Rather than replacing independent providers with a centralized service, the platform gives them the marketing, software, and operational support to run profitable telehealth practices of their own. It is a decentralizing bet in an industry that mostly rewards scale and consolidation.
That instinct did not come from nowhere. Before Klarity, Zhou founded Sentinel Tec in 2016 and led it until the company was acquired in 2019. The exit gave him the option to slow down. He chose instead to re-enter, this time in one of the hardest industries to change. He holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of California, Los Angeles.
The early results validated the thesis. By 2022 the platform had passed 150,000 patient visits, and the company relocated its headquarters to Silicon Valley. Investors took notice. The first pre-seed round was led by Mucker Capital and drew participation from Eric Yuan, the founder of Zoom, whose video platform had become almost synonymous with the telehealth boom Zhou was building into. A seed round followed with ZhenFund and UpHonest Capital, and in August 2023 the company raised a $10 million Series A led by Atypical Ventures.
What separates Zhou's approach from a typical marketplace play is where he keeps pushing. Klarity began with mental health, then extended into weight care, counseling, and primary care. In 2024 the company partnered with Headway, and by 2025 it had started accepting major insurance plans, a move that widened access considerably. Each step follows the same logic: make it easier for a patient to find an independent provider, and easier for that provider to say yes to seeing them.
"For too long, independent practices have lacked the right growth tools while facing fierce competition from healthcare companies with big marketing budgets. Finally, with Kiwi Health, independent providers now have the weapon built on the proven formula to drive success."— VICTOR ZHOU, ON THE LAUNCH OF KIWI HEALTH
If Klarity is the marketplace, Kiwi Health is the operating system Zhou built underneath it. Launched publicly in March 2025 and built on the same formula that grew Klarity's provider network, Kiwi Health packages the things big healthcare companies pay agencies for and hands them to solo practitioners.
That includes managing an online presence across more than 30 clinical directories, SEO-optimized websites, patient scheduling with automated intake and insurance verification, a HIPAA-compliant patient portal with a loyalty system, and telehealth tools with reminders and follow-ups. The pitch is simple: give the underdog the same infrastructure the giants guard.
The retention numbers are the part Zhou points to. On the network Kiwi is built from, the company reports a 94.3% provider retention rate and a 3.3x increase in transaction volume over the past year. In a market where providers churn quickly between platforms, keeping them is the harder win.
Founds Sentinel Tec and serves as its CEO.
Sentinel Tec is acquired.
Co-founds Klarity Health in California during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Closes a pre-seed round led by Mucker Capital, with Zoom founder Eric Yuan participating.
Passes 150,000 patient visits; completes a seed round; relocates HQ to Silicon Valley.
Raises a $10M Series A led by Atypical Ventures; launches Kiwi Health.
Expands into weight care, counseling, and primary care; partners with Headway.
Publicly launches Kiwi Health SaaS; begins accepting major insurance plans.
Rather than consolidating healthcare into a few large platforms, Zhou's aim is to spread it back out across thousands of empowered independent providers.
The core idea behind Kiwi Health is to give small practices the marketing and software leverage that only large budgets used to buy.
Expanding into insurance acceptance and new care categories is about lowering the barrier between a patient and a qualified provider.
Retention is the metric Zhou emphasizes. A platform providers stay on is one they can build a livelihood inside.
Zhou chose to re-enter as a repeat founder in healthcare, an industry defined by regulation, trust, and slow change.
Mental health, weight care, counseling, primary care — the surface area keeps growing rather than narrowing.