AI start-up Heidi cuts jobs weeks after raising $475 million

Melbourne AI scribe Heidi will cut about 18 per cent of its staff – 108 roles – in the same week two of its three co-founders said they were leaving the business.

The company, whose software records doctor-patient consultations and writes up clinical notes, said it was “rebalancing our team around the markets and investments that will deliver the greatest impact for our customers and support growth. Unfortunately, this means some roles are no longer required.”

Heidi did not say which of its markets would be affected by the cuts. It said severance packages would vary by country, but exceed statutory requirements, and that it was still hiring for key roles.

The company is active in more than 190 countries, and claims a market-leading position in Britain and the Asia-Pacific region. In Australia, its software is deployed at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, Children’s Health Queensland and Metro South Health in Brisbane.

The cuts follow the departure of co-founder Waleed Mussa, who ran Heidi’s finance, compliance and corporate affairs. He said on LinkedIn on Wednesday that he was stepping back from his operational role to spend time with his family, and would stay for the next couple of weeks to finish work from the company’s recent fundraising.

“Tom, the board and I have recognised our teenage child has now matured and as Heidi enters this next phase of growth and scale, the timing is right for this transition,” Mussa wrote.

Co-founder Yu Liu, who built Heidi’s technology, will move into an advisory role focused on models and hardware until the end of March.

“Waleed and Yu built Heidi with me, and it’s going to be really hard for all of us to continue without them,” chief executive Thomas Kelly wrote. He said the pair were leaving for different reasons.

In September, Heidi raised $US340 million ($475 million) in a deal led by venture capital firm Blackbird that valued the company at $1.26 billion. That included a $US240 million facility from US firm General Catalyst, to be repaid from revenue the money generates.

Blackbird has repeatedly called Heidi the fastest-growing company in its portfolio, ahead of graphic design software provider Canva, which this week announced more than 1000 job cuts.

The venture capital fund said on Thursday it supported “this difficult decision to drive the business on the markets and products where it can have the most impact. The people affected have helped build Heidi, and we’ll use our network to help them find their next role, including within our portfolio.”

Heidi says it supports close to 3 million patient interactions a week. Its annual recurring revenue reached $US50 million in April, up from $US1 million two years earlier.

The job cuts come amid a public fight with Best Practice, the Sonic Healthcare-backed company whose Bp Premier software is used by many Australian GPs. Best Practice warned customers this week that using Heidi’s new AI agent platform Heidi II with Bp Premier would breach its licence conditions, citing patient safety and data integrity.

Kelly said Best Practice’s position raised “concerns of anticompetitive conduct”. Best Practice chief executive Craig Hodges has rejected that. Best Practice is an investor in Heidi rival Lyrebird Health.

Kelly said in September Heidi needed to keep improving its own models, “otherwise we wouldn’t be able to keep giving the product away for free, as we’ve seen Canva and others struggle to do”.

Canva said on Wednesday it would cut 1271 jobs, or 22 per cent of its workforce, after its growth slowed for the first time in a decade amid the rapid rise of AI. Atlassian cut 1600 jobs in March, and WiseTech Global announced 2000 cuts the same month.

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