Melbourne scaleup Heidi Health has raised US$65 million (A$98m) in a series B, just seven months after banking nearly $27m in a Series A top up.
The round was led by New York hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen’s VC arm, Point72 Private Investments, supported by exiting backers including local VC Blackbird, and US funds Headline, and Latitude (the growth fund of Phoenix Court).
This raise values Heidi at US$465 million (A$704m) – more than 450% up on May’s US$100m valuation – after US$96.6m in venture funding has been injected into the AI-based medical notes taker.
The scaleup is also plotting a $5 million “community round” of strategic investment from its doctor users.
In March, Headline led a A$27m (US$16.6m) top up to Heidi’s initial $10m Series A in October 2023. Blackbird led the A$5m Seed raise (when the startup was called Oscar) in 2021.
The latest cash botox will plump up Heidi’s headcount, now at 200, plus office locations and support in the USA, UK and Canadian markets. The AI healthtech also counts France, Spain, Germany, Ireland, South Africa, Singapore and Hong Kong as key markets for ongoing expansion.
The company’s also nabbed two tech heavyweights for its leadership team, with former Salesforce exec and Plaid revenue boss Paul Williamson signing on as chief revenue officer, and Microsoft’s chief medical officer, Dr Simon Kos, moving into the same role there.
Dr Kos said Heidi not only improves delivering care for clinicians but also the patient experience.
“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 while protecting the human touch in healthcare,” he said.
The startup is continuing to evolve its “AI Care Partner”, which automates administrative work for health clinicians.
CEO Dr Thomas Kelly, who was a vascular surgical resident, cofounded Heidi (as Oscar) in 2021 with former Goldman Sachs analyst Waleed Mussa and former Coles data scientist Yu Liu.
The AI platform transcribes and processes conversations between doctors and patients to produce clinical notes and follow-up materials, from referral letters to assessments.
It launched in February 2024.
Dr Kelly said that in just 18 months, Heidi has returned more than 18 million hours to frontline clinicians by streamlining critical administrative tasks.
“It is untenable that healthcare demand continues to rise while clinical time continues to shrink,” ,” he said.
“Building a sustainable healthcare system requires expanding clinical capacity without compromising clinician wellbeing or patient safety.”
Clinicians from more than 200 medical specialties have used Heidi for 73 million patient consults. The platform now supports over two million consults weekly in 110 languages across 116 countries.
In Australia, Monash Health, which has 40 facilities including 7 hospitals, and Queensland Health Children’s Hospital and Health Service, both use Heidi.
Point72 managing partner Sri Chandrasekar said they’ve been impressed by the adoption rates Heidi’s achieved in health systems globally.
“We believe administrative burden is contributing to clinician burnout and capacity challenges across healthcare systems.,” he said.
“Heidi’s platform has the potential to meaningfully improve how clinicians manage their administrative workflows.
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