Health-Tech Firm Heidi Acquires AutoMedica
Health-tech company Heidi has acquired AutoMedica, a clinical AI tool provider. Following the acquisition, Heidi immediately launched a suite of new AI products. The move illustrates the fluidity of the competitive landscape, where companies can use strategic acquisitions to rapidly innovate and address unmet clinical needs.
- The acquisition immediately preceded the launch of two new Heidi products: "Heidi Evidence," a clinical research and decision-support tool, and "Heidi Comms," a patient communications suite for managing bookings, reminders, and follow-ups. - Heidi Evidence is designed to be ad-free and utilizes large language models from Anthropic's Claude to provide clinicians with real-time, sourced answers from partners like NICE, BMJ Group, and HealthPathways. - The acquisition of AutoMedica provides Heidi with crucial regulatory experience; AutoMedica participated in the UK's MHRA AI Airlock, a regulatory sandbox for testing healthcare AI products, giving Heidi an advantage in navigating compliance for enterprise-level deployments. - AutoMedica was founded by clinicians with backgrounds in AI and machine learning, and its team will be integrated into Heidi, bringing an "evidence-led AI framework" to the company. - This expansion from a clinical scribe to a broader "AI Care Partner" platform is backed by significant funding; Heidi closed a $65 million Series B in October 2025, which valued the company at $465 million. - Heidi's platform currently supports over 2.4 million consultations each week across 190 countries and is used in emergency departments, general practices, and specialist clinics. - The strategic move aims to differentiate Heidi from general-purpose AI platforms that may move toward ad-supported models, emphasizing that clinical evidence must be free from commercial influence, a key value proposition for health systems. - Heidi's co-founder and CEO, Dr. Thomas Kelly, stated the goal is to ensure the integrity of AI-provided evidence is "non-negotiable," directly addressing enterprise concerns about the reliability and safety of AI in clinical settings.
