Company profile · 3 min read
Avoca Systems: Radiology operations from referral to follow-up
Avoca automates radiology calls, scheduling, faxes, e-referrals and patient communications while encoding clinic-specific operational rules.
Cofounder of Lazyweb (a16z Speedrun). Previously grew subscriptions and built native ads at Duolingo. Writes First1000 (90,000+ subscribers).
Published · Updated
Avoca Systems is a radiology-specific patient-access and operations layer. It fits imaging networks that lose demand in calls, referrals and scheduling because generic contact-center tools do not understand modalities, preparation, staffing or scanner capacity.
What it does
Avoca’s YC profile describes a system that automates calls, online scheduling, faxes, e-referrals and patient communications from referral through results and follow-up. The workflow is specific to radiology: a booking may depend on modality, body region, contrast, patient history, preparation, equipment and staff qualifications.
The current company site shows the same product as three connected layers: a booking engine, patient experience and operational intelligence. Avoca says it can capture calls across channels, ingest referrals, contact patients for missing information, send preparation and reminder messages and connect to radiology information systems. That makes the product closer to an operating layer for a network than a standalone voice bot.
The public launch reports more than 250 clinics, call abandonment reduced from roughly 30% to 2%, average patient satisfaction of 4.6/5 and more than 80% booking conversion for eligible calls in major deployments. The homepage separately shows an 86% call-resolution figure and customer stories. These are company-reported deployment claims, not independent measurements, and the denominator behind each metric matters.
Founder context and tradeoffs
The YC profile identifies Max Shand as CEO, with an earlier exit and experience as an early Afterpay employee, and Campbell Mercer-Butcher as CTO, with engineering work at Honey Insurance, Macquarie Bank and Ailo. That combination maps to operational software and automation in regulated, high-volume workflows.
Pricing is not public. A radiology network should ask about RIS integration, clinical escalation, referral data, patient identity, audit trails, localization and how clinic-specific rules are changed. The product’s advantage is its domain model; the cost is that deployment has to encode the network’s real operational knowledge instead of relying on generic scheduling defaults.
Editorial take
I would shortlist Avoca for a multi-site radiology network with measurable call abandonment or referral backlog. The best evaluation is one modality and one clinic workflow, measured from referral to booked appointment. I would not buy it as a generic healthcare call center without testing the safety and scheduling rules that make radiology different.
Quick facts
| Field | Sourced detail |
|---|---|
| Product | Radiology scheduling, calls, referrals and patient communications |
| Buyers | Outpatient radiology networks and imaging groups |
| Public claims | Clinic count, call, satisfaction and booking metrics; company-reported |
| Pricing | Not publicly listed |
| Main gate | RIS integration, patient safety, clinic rules and metric definitions |
Sources checked
| Source | Checked |
|---|---|
| YC profile | 2026-09-19 |
| Avoca homepage | 2026-09-19 |
| Avoca about page | 2026-09-19 |
| Avoca launch | 2026-09-19 |
Cohort context
Avoca Systems is listed in Summer 2026. In our 2026-09-18 directory snapshot, 22 of 232 listed companies in that cohort have YC’s primary industry label Healthcare (9.5%). This is a current-directory comparison, not an original intake count or a performance ranking. Nine-cohort dataset.
Public website snapshot
Observed 2026-09-19T16:18:36.799Z in raw homepage HTML. This records visible metadata and advertised links, not agent execution or product quality.
| Signal | Homepage observation |
|---|---|
| Product description metadata | Observed |
| Canonical link | Observed |
| H1 or H2 heading | Observed |
| Typed structured data | Observed |
| Docs/developer link | Not observed in this response |
| Pricing link | Not observed in this response |
| llms.txt link | Not observed in this response |
| Markdown alternate | Not observed in this response |
Public observations · Collection method. Missing links here do not establish that a capability or file is absent elsewhere.
About the author
Cofounder of Lazyweb (a16z Speedrun). Previously grew subscriptions and built native ads at Duolingo. Writes First1000 (90,000+ subscribers).
I cofound Lazyweb and publish Mudpie. This is an owner-written publication, not an independent testing organization. Research notes distinguish observations, sourced reporting and editorial judgment.
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