From left: Heidi co-founders Waleed Mussa, CFO; Dr. Thomas Kelly, CEO; and Yu Liu, CTO.
Australian healthcare artificial intelligence company Heidi has closed a AU$65 million Series B funding raising round, valuing the company at $465 million and bringing total funding to nearly $100 million.
The Melbourne-based company, which has already returned more than 18 million hours to frontline clinicians in just 18 months, plans to use the capital to accelerate development of its AI Care Partner platform. The technology automates administrative tasks including clinical documentation, evidence search, and follow-up communications, addressing a critical issue in healthcare systems worldwide.
According to Heidi, clinicians spend nearly as much time on administration as they do on patient care – a problem its platform is designed to tackle head-on. The company has already supported 73 million patient consultations and now processes over two million consults weekly across 110 languages in 116 countries.
Dr Thomas Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Heidi and a former vascular surgical resident, said he built Heidi to be “an AI Care Partner that stands alongside clinicians, empowering them to deliver the care to which they have dedicated their lives”.
“It is untenable that healthcare demand continues to rise while clinical time continues to shrink. Building a sustainable healthcare system requires expanding clinical capacity without compromising clinician wellbeing or patient safety,” he explained.
Tens of thousands of clinicians from over 200 medical specialties have adopted the platform, with significant uptake across major healthcare systems in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Within Australia’s public health system, Heidi is being used by Monash Health, which serves a local population of ~1.6 million across 40 facilities including seven hospitals; and Queensland Health Children’s Hospital and Health Service. In New Zealand, Heidi has been formally endorsed by the Health Ministry as one of two healthcare AI providers safe to trial in the public health system.
The company has also announced two senior appointments: Paul Williamson, previously Head of Revenue at Plaid, joins as Chief Revenue Officer, while Dr Simon Kos, former Chief Medical Officer of Microsoft, becomes Chief Medical Officer.
Dr Kos said: “Heidi’s bold vision extends beyond the current promise of ambient voice technology and into a future where every clinician can leverage AI to expand their clinical capacity whilst protecting the human touch in healthcare.”