Yu Liu and Waleed Mussa are stepping back from the Australian AI healthcare company just weeks after it secured a $1.26 billion valuation.
Two co-founders of Heidi Health are leaving their operational roles, less than two months after the AI scribe company completed a $140 million capital raising.
In what Heidi chief executive and co-founder Dr Thomas Kelly described as “sad news”, he announced on LinkedIn that chief technology officer Yu Liu and fellow co-founder Waleed Mussa would step back from the company over the coming weeks and months.
“Waleed and Yu built Heidi with me, and it’s going to be really hard for all of us to continue without them,” Dr Kelly wrote on LinkedIn.
“They’re leaving for different reasons, with their transitions happening over the coming weeks and months.
“Every sacrifice they’ve made has helped us get here. We’re still early in our mission to double healthcare capacity, but the list of things they’ve helped us achieve is already too long to do justice to here.
“Whole countries have adopted AI in healthcare thanks in no small part to their work.”
Dr Kelly revealed Mr Mussa would depart his operational role within the next few weeks to spend “some long-overdue time with his family after so many late nights and weeks away”, while Mr Liu “will transition into an advisory role focused on models and hardware through the end of March next year”.
“Waleed and Yu: thank you for taking a chance on me, on Oscer and on Heidi. And thank you for trusting us to carry this mission forward,” Dr Kelly wrote.
“I love you both. You’ll do amazing things, whatever comes next.”
The departures come at a pivotal time for Heidi Health, which achieved unicorn status in September following a $140 million funding round that valued the company at $1.26 billion.
The Blackbird-backed company also secured $335 million from General Catalyst’s customer value fund to support its sales, marketing and customer acquisition activities.
Heidi Health’s AI-powered clinical documentation platform now operates in more than 190 countries, with Mr Mussa revealing that the technology supports around three million patient interactions every week.
“Heidi exists to double the world’s healthcare capacity,” Mr Mussa wrote on LinkedIn.
“Helping clinicians spend more time caring for their patients has been an immense privilege, and I’m proud of what we’ve built together.”
Mr Mussa said his responsibilities had spanned finance, compliance, corporate affairs and international expansion, including establishing market positions across the Asia-Pacific and UK, as well as emerging markets in the Gulf and South Africa.
He also highlighted partnerships with major cloud technology providers and Nvidia as among his recent achievements.
“From building our finance function to leading the Compliance and Corporate Affairs team that earns the trust of regulators and health systems, I focused on the foundations that protect everything else we do,” he wrote.
However, he said the demands of building the business had come at a personal cost.
“Running at full speed kept me from my family more than I wanted,” he wrote.
“After an unforgettable journey, I’m taking a breath and stepping back to focus to be present with my family before exploring what lies ahead.”
Mr Mussa described Heidi as his “ambitious, bold teenage child” and said he and the board had agreed the company’s next phase of growth presented an appropriate opportunity for his departure.
“I have complete confidence in Tom and the team, and I’ll support a smooth handover over the coming weeks. I remain a committed shareholder and a passionate champion of Heidi,” he wrote.
“To the clinicians and organisations who put their trust in us: thank you. I’ve worked hard to honour that trust in every decision.
“To my fellow co-founders and everyone who has poured heir heart into this mission: thank you for building it with me. It’s been a hell of a ride.”
Mr Liu’s departure follows six years with the business, which he joined after an unconventional introduction to Dr Kelly.
In his own LinkedIn post, Mr Liu recalled responding to a message from Dr Kelly despite suspecting it might be spam.
“Six years ago, I took a gamble on a LinkedIn message. There was probably a 20% chance it was spam,” he wrote.
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The message came from an almost empty profile with the biography: “I’m tall. I love to help people.”
“Out of curiosity, I replied and agreed to meet. Partly because I genuinely wanted to find out how tall this guy was.
“Turns out, it was a LeetCode interview. I wasn’t offended. I’ve always loved solving problems. Within two seconds, I had come up with two different solutions – one optimised for memory, the other for compute.”
That meeting led to an offer to become technical lead of a tutoring business developing a new project, which eventually evolved into Oscer, Heidi GP and Heidi Health.
Mr Liu said he had known almost nothing about healthcare when he joined but had spent the subsequent six years developing technology spanning clinical AI, infrastructure, models, agents and hardware.
“Some things worked. Many didn’t. We made mistakes, learned fast, rebuilt things from scratch, and kept pushing the boundaries of what was possible,” he wrote.
Despite the technological achievements, Mr Liu said his greatest source of pride was the people he had worked alongside.
“But looking back, what I’m most proud of isn’t the technology, the products, or the numbers.
“It’s the people.”
He also acknowledged the clinicians who had adopted the company’s technology.
“And to the clinicians who trusted us with their time, their workflows, and ultimately their patients – thank you. You’ve given our work a purpose much bigger than ourselves.”
Mr Liu said leaving the business was difficult but expressed confidence in its future.
“It’s hard to walk away from something you’ve spent six years building, especially when you still believe so deeply in its future,” he wrote.
“But I know Heidi is in incredible hands, and I can’t wait to see how far the team takes it.”
Dr Kelly also reflected on the unlikely circumstances that brought the three founders together.
He first met Mr Mussa in 2015 while working at Fraser’s GAMSAT as a medical student, crediting him with teaching him the fundamentals of building and leading a business.
In 2019, Mr Mussa backed Dr Kelly’s earlier venture, Oscer, which would eventually become Heidi Health.
Mr Liu subsequently joined as technical lead, with the pair securing backing from Blackbird in early 2021 before Mr Mussa offered to take on the business functions neither could manage.
“It felt like an all-star player asking to join your team,” Dr Kelly wrote.
The leadership changes come as Heidi Health faces intensifying competition in Australia’s AI clinical documentation market.
The company has recently become embroiled in a dispute with practice management software provider Best Practice, which warned customers that using Heidi II with its Bp Premier software would breach licensing conditions.
Best Practice chief executive Craig Hodges raised concerns about clinical information integrity and patient safety, while Dr Kelly accused the software provider of attempting to restrict competition. Mr Hodges rejected the allegation.
Best Practice has an existing partnership with rival AI scribe provider Lyrebird Health, highlighting the increasingly competitive market for AI-powered clinical documentation and integration with general practice software.
Despite those challenges, Heidi Health has continued to report rapid revenue growth.
In April, the company disclosed that annualised recurring revenue had increased from $US1 million in 2024 to $US50 million, with The Australian Financial Review reporting that the figure had subsequently exceeded $US60 million.
Dr Kelly said the contributions of both departing founders had been central to the company’s expansion and broader ambitions for healthcare.
“We’re still early in our mission to double healthcare capacity, but the list of things they’ve helped us achieve is already too long to do justice to here,” he wrote.
“Whole countries have adopted AI in healthcare thanks in no small part to their work.”