Zeya Health acquires ConnectLah to build AI booking rails for clinics

In healthcare, booking an appointment is rarely as simple as finding an empty slot on a calendar. A patient may need a specific doctor, a particular procedure, a referral, a follow-up window, or a clinic that accepts certain rules around timing and availability. Much of this still sits in phone calls, WhatsApp threads and front-desk work.

Singapore-based Zeya Health is betting that this messy layer of healthcare access is where AI can create real value. The Antler-backed startup has acquired ConnectLah, a clinic automation company that helps healthcare providers manage patient communication and booking workflows through WhatsApp.

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The deal brings ConnectLah’s product, technology and customer relationships into Zeya’s patient access platform. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Zeya said the acquisition comes after a year in which it recorded 15-fold revenue growth. The company currently works with healthcare providers in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia and Vietnam, as well as a hospital partner in Cambodia. It aims to reach 1,000 healthcare providers by mid-2027.

From chat automation to AI booking infrastructure

Zeya already helps clinics and hospitals manage patient enquiries, bookings, reminders and follow-ups across messaging and voice channels. With ConnectLah folded into the company, Zeya wants to deepen its ability to automate the steps between a patient asking for an appointment and a provider confirming it.

The company describes this as “agentic booking infrastructure”. In plain terms, that means building systems that allow AI agents to do more than answer questions. They must be able to understand a patient’s request, check clinic rules, match appointment types with the right practitioner, interact with existing healthcare software, and complete a booking without breaking the provider’s workflow.

“Booking an appointment should be as simple as asking for one,” said Agastya Samat, founder and CEO of Zeya Health. “The complexity sits behind the scenes: the schedules, systems and rules that determine what can actually be booked.”

That complexity is particularly visible in Southeast Asia, where healthcare systems are highly fragmented. Large private hospital groups, specialist centres, neighbourhood clinics and independent practitioners often use different software systems, communication habits and administrative processes. Many still rely heavily on WhatsApp, calls and manual coordination, especially in markets where consumer messaging apps have become the default front door for services.

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This makes healthcare access a difficult problem for generic AI tools. A chatbot can collect a patient’s name and preferred time, but it cannot safely confirm an appointment unless it understands the provider’s rules and can connect to the relevant system of record. Zeya’s argument is that the real opportunity lies not in another patient-facing bot, but in the infrastructure layer that lets AI work reliably with healthcare operations.

Why ConnectLah matters

ConnectLah’s focus on WhatsApp gives Zeya a practical entry point into how many clinics already communicate with patients. The company helps automate patient communication, appointment booking, reminders and front-desk workflows inside familiar messaging channels.

For Zeya, the acquisition is less about adding a standalone product and more about absorbing workflows that have already been tested in clinics. ConnectLah customers are expected to gain access to a broader set of tools connected to existing clinic systems, while Zeya expands its provider footprint.

“ConnectLah brought AI into the channels clinics and patients already use, proving the approach in real clinics and live patient workflows,” said Jules Pereira-Gomes, founder of ConnectLah, who will join Zeya as a strategic advisor.

The transition will focus on the workflows and integrations relevant to each provider, according to the company. In practice, that means Zeya will need to account for variations in how clinics handle different appointment types, practitioner availability, reminders and follow-ups.

If executed well, the combined platform could reduce the back-and-forth that often defines healthcare booking. A patient asks a question, a staff member checks availability, clarifies details, proposes a time, waits for confirmation, then sends reminders manually. For providers facing staff shortages or rising patient volumes, shaving down this coordination burden can be more than a convenience.

A regional race for the healthcare front door

Zeya is entering a crowded but still unsettled market. Across Asia Pacific, startups and incumbents are trying to own different parts of the healthcare access stack.

At the consumer-facing end, companies such as Doctor Anywhere in Singapore, Halodoc in Indonesia, Practo in India and HealthEngine in Australia have built large patient networks around online consultations, appointment discovery or health services marketplaces. Globally, firms such as Doctolib in Europe and Zocdoc in the US have shown how appointment booking can become a major platform category.

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Zeya’s positioning is different. Rather than building primarily as a consumer marketplace, it is targeting the provider infrastructure layer: the workflows behind bookings, reminders and patient communication. That could make it complementary to some patient-facing platforms, but it also places the company in competition with clinic management systems, patient engagement tools and AI automation vendors trying to modernise healthcare administration.

The distinction matters in Southeast Asia. Many healthcare providers are cautious about surrendering patient relationships to third-party marketplaces. A tool that helps clinics keep control of their booking rules and communication channels may face less resistance than one that tries to redirect patients into a new app.

The AI assistant angle

Zeya’s longer-term ambition is to make healthcare booking workflows accessible to authorised personal AI assistants. The idea is that a patient could ask their preferred AI assistant to find and book an appointment, while the provider’s systems still enforce the rules around what can actually be scheduled.

This is still an emerging behaviour. Most patients today are not using personal AI agents to book medical appointments. But the direction is clear: as AI assistants become more capable, they will need reliable rails into real-world services. Healthcare is one of the hardest categories because accuracy, privacy, consent and operational fit all matter.

That is why Zeya’s bet is both timely and difficult. The company is not just trying to automate clinic chat. It is trying to become part of the connective tissue between patients, providers and the AI agents that may increasingly sit between them.

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For now, the acquisition of ConnectLah gives Zeya more product depth, more customer relationships and a faster route into clinics already using messaging-led workflows. The bigger test will be whether it can scale across countries where healthcare software adoption, regulation and clinic behaviour vary widely.

In a region where the first point of care is often still a phone call or a WhatsApp message, the company’s opportunity is clear: make booking feel simple for patients without pretending the backend is simple for providers.

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