Dr Thomas Kelly \u2013 who traded life as a vascular surgeon to co-found Heidi in 2019 \u2013 told the Herald the Catalyst funding was not private credit because it was specifically provided for acquiring customers. There were no debt covenants attached.<\/p>\n
If it cost US$100 to acquire a customer, Heidi would then pay that amount back plus a set margin \u2013 for a total of $110 or $120 \u2013 with Kelly\u2019s firm keeping 100% of the cashflow from that customer.<\/p>\n
It was critical to have a non-dilutive source of funding to protect shares owned by employees \u2013 which were an incentive for staff to stay at a time when the Albanese Government\u2019s capital gains tax overhaul had seen some Heidi staff asking about moving overseas to escape what they saw as a \u201ctax grab\u201d.<\/p>\n
Where the money\u2019s going<\/p>\n
Heidi will use its new venture capital to expand its global presence and its suite of products, which now includes tools for integrating patient records and its Evidence medical explainer platform, which lets a GP \u2013 or anyone ask a question.<\/p>\n
\u201cAsk mid-visit. Heidi answers, scores and drafts what comes next,\u201d the company says.<\/p>\n
Kelly says Evidence has two key differences with general AI chatbots: it only taps trusted sources, with citations provided for every line, and it carries no advertisements. Evidence has fielded 10 million queries since it was launched in March.<\/p>\n
Some of the new funding will go towards a new translator product, still in the early stages of development.<\/p>\n
Kelly said it would have the same features as his firm\u2019s AI scribe, but add translation features if a patient spoke, say, Chinese or Samoan and had no English.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I used to work in hospitals, I used Google Translate more than once,\u201d Kelly said. The aim was to develop a translator that could handle both clinical grade medical notes and accurate language translation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re in an ED [the emergency department] at 3am, whether someone describes a pain as \u2018sharp\u2019 or \u2018dull\u2019 can be the difference between whether a surgeon decides to operate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Growth surge<\/p>\n
Heidi says its AI Care Partner (its core tool for capturing a doctor-patient chat, then summarising it as medical notes and drafting any required letters) has now been used for 175 million patient visits, up from 73 million at the time of its October 2025 Series B round.<\/p>\n
Annual recurring revenue (or ARR \u2013 the monthly subscription revenue extrapolated over the next 12 months) has grown from US$1m to US$50m (as of April 2026) in just two years, the firm says.<\/p>\n
Its contracts include a sole-supply deal with the UK\u2019s National Health Service (NHS) for NHS Midlands, which includes licences for 70,000 clinicians serving about 11 million patients.<\/p>\n
Heidi says it is the largest AI clinical documentation procurement in NHS history. It followed pilots that cut emergency documentation time by 80% and a six-month rheumatology backlog to 14 days.<\/p>\n
Australian public health system rollouts including the Royal Children\u2019s Hospital Melbourne, the Children\u2019s Health Queensland Hospital and Health Service and Metro South Health (the largest regional division of Queensland\u2019s public health system). Heidi has also expanded into the US, Canada, the Middle East and Asia.<\/p>\n
Founder sees over-regulation threat<\/p>\n
In Australia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently created the Office of AI.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sensible for the Government to have some dedicated oversight,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019m worried about the risk of over-regulation of AI.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you make something perfectly safe, you stifle innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was early days. In the past, regulation had been informed by actual experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had cars and people had accidents before we had seatbelts,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n
Will young doctors lose a vehicle for critical thinking?<\/p>\n
University of Otago associate professor Dr Ben Gray told the Herald that while he had never used Heidi\u2019s scribe personally, he was worried that AI tools would result in info dumps in a context where notes had to be succinct and to the point.<\/p>\n
He also worried that a generation of doctors would come through with no note-taking skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important that clinicians learn to synthesise their thinking,\u201d Kelly responded.<\/p>\n
His AI product also allowed clinicians to add their own notes \u2013 or not use AI at all if that was their choice or their patient\u2019s choice.<\/p>\n
A Hawke\u2019s Bay trial had shown that Heidi\u2019s scribe could cut the time it took to process a patient\u2019s documentation from 17 to four minutes (Gray said the Hawke\u2019s Bay pilot, which involved 10 clinicians over two months, should have been larger and longer).<\/p>\n
Kelly said a doctor should always check the AI notes, as they should if they wrote them themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cDoctors can hallucinate [make mistakes] too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kelly said AI note-takers were also proving more neutral. \u201cIf you think there\u2019s a certain condition, you\u2019re likely to over-emphasise it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
AI backlash?<\/p>\n