Dr. Thomas Kelly is the co-founder and CEO of Heidi.
Provided by Thomas Kelly
In 2017, Thomas Kelly graduated from medical school and finally became a doctor. He dreamed of it as a child and spent years pursuing it. But once she started practicing, Kelly realized that the job was different than she had imagined.
“As a doctor, my time was very limited. I only had 10 minutes for my patients,” he told CNBC Make It. “I found myself having to see 100 patients a day, always in a hurry, and coordinating 700 tests and 1 million tasks at any given time.”
“In a perfect world…I would spend as much time with (my patients) as I need…I would understand their families, remember them deeply, and check in on them regularly,” he said. But in reality, like many other clinicians, he faced “incredible burnout” working in the field.
Inspired to tackle this problem, Kelly created an AI tool to help with things like transcribing consultations and generating clinical notes, with the goal of reducing the burden on doctors and clinicians.
Currently, the 33-year-old is the co-founder and CEO of AI medical scribe Heidi. The company announced a $65 million Series B round in October, valuing the company at $465 million.
early exploration
Kelly grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and was inspired to pursue a career in medicine by her family doctor.
“I just loved my family doctor…He was the epitome of using intelligence and knowledge for good,” Kelly said. “He always had great plans. He was very warm and had a great bedside manner, but he was also incredibly sharp and always intelligent.”
The experience stayed with him. During his college years, he explored other interests such as mathematics and computer science, and ultimately decided to pursue medicine. I joined the University of Melbourne in 2013 to begin medical school.
While studying medicine, Kelly also started a side hustle, posting educational videos on YouTube and mentoring medical students.
To his surprise, the videos started attracting more students than he could handle at the time, and what started as a hobby steadily grew into a small business. To better manage her time during her tutoring job, Kelly began experimenting with building artificial intelligence tools.
“The first AI product I tried to build was an interview tutor that people could practice with,” Kelly says. The tool, called Oscar, allows students to practice speaking with medical interviewers and has been used by about 20,000 students by 2020.
“That was the seed that gave birth to Heidi,” he said.
As Oscar progressed, Kelly began to realize its wide potential. “There wasn’t a[single]lightbulb moment,” Kelly says, but he realized that if AI tools could understand conversations between students and coroners, they could do the same between patients and doctors.
“Then you can make clinical notes. You can potentially do differential diagnosis. You can also complete tasks,” he said. “This is the root of medicine. It’s a very advanced, very specialized, deep, complex conversation, but it’s still a conversation.”
take a leap
By 2021, Kelly had a big decision to make. You can either commit fully to your medical career and begin training in vascular surgery, or you can take a break and work on building AI tools that not only help medical students but also clinicians and physicians.
“I took the plunge,” Kelly said. “I thought I would regret it for the rest of my life if I passed up this opportunity. How many surgical residents with good math skills and business experience could build this product? I don’t think there are many.”
“Maybe I was arrogant, but I thought, if anyone can start this company, it’s me, and I’ll see what happens,” he said.
So in 2021, Kelly officially gave up her career as a doctor and focused all her efforts on creating Heidi. Currently, this tool helps doctors relieve some of their administrative tasks, such as creating documents, clinical records, etc.
Heidi has grown into a strong business, raising nearly $100 million in funding.
“At one point, I just reflected on myself…if you were in a nursing home and you had family around you, what would you regret? And in my case, I did. I definitely would have regretted it if I hadn’t tried,” Kelly said.
Want to give your kids the ultimate advantage? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course, “How to Raise Financially Smart Kids.” Learn how to build healthy financial habits now to set your kids up for greater success in the future. Use coupon code EARLYBIRD for 30% off. Offer valid from December 8th to December 22nd, 2025. Terms and conditions apply.
