Melbourne-based AI health technology company Heidi is making Toronto its North American headquarters, investing $25.4 million and planning roughly 30 new hires over the next several years, the company and Invest Ontario announced Sept. 22, 2026.
Heidi builds an AI ambient scribe that listens to patient visits and automatically generates clinical notes, reducing paperwork for doctors and nurses. The Toronto office already employs 17 people and will grow into engineering, clinical and commercial roles, according to the company.
“This round lets us build out in Canada properly, through more engineers and staff in the Toronto office, deeper local research, and real work alongside hospitals and primary care teams,” Thomas Kelly, Heidi’s co-founder and chief executive, said in a statement.
Jessie Young, Heidi’s president of North America, said the choice of Toronto “reflects the city’s status as a global AI and health-tech leader,” while Ontario Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli called the expansion a boost to “Ontario’s AI leadership.” Invest Ontario chief executive Khawar Nasim said the agency provided advisory support, labour market data and introductions to hospitals and health teams as part of the deal.
The Toronto investment follows a US$100-million Series C funding round that valued Heidi at US$900 million, Bloomberg reported Sept. 22. Canada is already Heidi’s second-largest and fastest-growing market after Australia, the company said, with its tools used for more than 11 million clinical hours in the country since launch.
Heidi’s expansion lands amid a broader, and more complicated, push to scale AI scribes across Canada’s health system. Canada Health Infoway, a federally funded non-profit, reported this month that 12,019 primary care clinicians took part in its National AI Scribe Program between June 2025 and February 2026, with more than 7,400 using the tools at least 10 times a month by February. Participating clinicians saved an average of 1.11 hours a week during work hours, Infoway said, and 70 per cent reported reduced administrative burden.
That rapid uptake comes with warnings attached. A recent analysis from the C.D. Howe Institute found that all 20 AI scribe products evaluated by Supply Ontario showed some rate of factual errors, including hallucinated or incomplete documentation, and that companies face separate procurement, regulatory and reimbursement rules in each of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories. The institute argued that fragmentation, more than any shortage of demand or research talent, is what limits Canada’s ability to turn early clinician enthusiasm into a globally competitive health AI sector.
For Ontario, landing Heidi’s North American base is a tangible win in the competition among jurisdictions to host AI companies rather than merely supply them with users and data. But the province’s own procurement audit, cited in the C.D. Howe report, found government employees accessing unsanctioned AI tools with minimal training, a reminder that the rules governing this technology are still catching up to its adoption. Whether Toronto’s newest AI health tenant becomes a bet on a properly regulated Canadian market or an early mover in a still-unsettled one may depend on how quickly that catch-up happens.
