Extends Waystar’s AI leadership into clinical intelligence software, unlocking greater value for clients and shareholders
Highly recurring subscription-based business projected to be accretive to Waystar’s financial profile
Expected to expand Waystar’s total addressable market by more than 15%
Waystar, a provider of leading healthcare payment software, announced a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Iodine Software (“Iodine”) from shareholders led by Advent International, a leading global private equity investor, for a total enterprise value of $1.25 billion. The proposed transaction is expected to accelerate Waystar’s ability to transform healthcare payments through its leading cloud-based software platform, empowering more than one million providers with advanced AI capabilities to prevent denials, reduce manual work, and improve financial performance.
Building on Waystar’s track record of successful M&A execution and synergy realization, Waystar expects the acquisition of Iodine to be immediately accretive to gross margin and adjusted EBITDA margin, and accretive to revenue growth and non-GAAP net income per diluted share in 2027.
Iodine is trusted by many of the nation’s premier health systems for its AI-powered clinical intelligence software. Up to 60 million claims are denied each year due to administrative errors in the critical stage between care delivery and submission, costing providers billions in lost revenue. This highlights the essential role of accurate clinical documentation and coding in preventing revenue leakage and underpayments.
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Together, Waystar and Iodine will be better positioned to help decrease the estimated $440 billion in annual administrative costs1 burdening providers. Waystar brings a decade-long track record of applying AI pervasively across its software platform to simplify healthcare payments. Iodine extends that leadership into clinical intelligence software, leveraging proprietary AI models trained on one of the industry’s largest clinical datasets, representing more than a third of all U.S. inpatient discharges.
“Our mission is to simplify healthcare payments by eradicating unnecessary denied claims, automating manual work, and increasing transparency for providers and patients,” said Matt Hawkins, Chief Executive Officer of Waystar. “We are committed to transforming healthcare through harnessing the power of AI to tackle the most critical challenges in healthcare payments. Welcoming Iodine’s talented team and clinical intelligence platform to Waystar is a terrific next step in achieving our mission.”
“We are proud to have built a market-leading AI software company in partnership with Advent, Bain Capital Ventures, and Silversmith Capital Partners, and are thrilled to join Waystar, an organization that shares our deep commitment to modernizing the revenue cycle for providers,” said William Chan, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Iodine Software. “From day one, our focus has been helping hospitals and health systems capture the full value of care through transformational AI. As part of Waystar, we are excited to accelerate that mission and amplify the value delivered to healthcare providers.”
“Our success has been driven by strong partnerships, continuous innovation, and meaningful outcomes,” added Mike Kadyan, Co-Founder and Chairman of Iodine Software. “We look forward to delivering even greater outcomes for providers as part of Waystar’s market-leading platform.”
“It has been a privilege to partner alongside the Iodine team as they have built a category-defining AI-powered revenue cycle platform consistently delivering exceptional ROI to its clients,” said Lauren Young and Carmine Petrone, Managing Directors at Advent. “We are excited to build on that foundation together with Waystar to drive even greater impact across healthcare, empowering organizations to optimize their financial performance.”
Strategic and Financial Benefits
- Unlocks transformational outcomes across the revenue cycle: Waystar expects to unlock new automation throughout its platform, leveraging Iodine’s industry-leading AI capabilities in clinical documentation integrity, utilization management, and prebill revenue leakage identification to further streamline cumbersome tasks for providers. The addition of these solutions is expected to expand Waystar’s total addressable market by more than 15%.
- Accelerates AI innovation with clinical intelligence: Integrating Iodine’s unique clinical data assets with Waystar’s expansive data network is expected to enhance the impact and reach of Waystar AltitudeAI™. Waystar expects to create opportunities that quickly expand GenAI applications in prior authorizations, claims management and processing, denial prevention, and appeals. Iodine’s proprietary clinical AI engine, IodineIQ, continuously trains on millions of patient encounters and billions of clinical data points to deliver relevant insights.
- Deepens relationships with premier health systems: Iodine brings strong adoption and credibility among leading hospitals and health systems. Iodine’s footprint is expected to expand Waystar’s scale and deepen relationships with premier providers. The combined company is expected to serve 17 of the 20 U.S. News Best Hospitals.
- Strengthens Waystar’s financial profile: Waystar will benefit from Iodine’s fully subscription-based revenue model as well as significant cross-sell potential to both companies’ client bases. In addition, Waystar has identified more than $15 million in run-rate cost synergies, to be realized within the first 18-24 months following closing.
Transaction Details
The transaction will be funded with a 50/50 mix of cash and stock consideration. Upon closing of the transaction, current Waystar shareholders will own approximately 92% of the combined company on a fully diluted, pro forma basis and Iodine equity holders will own approximately 8%. Advent, Iodine’s largest shareholder, is expected to only receive Waystar shares in connection with the transaction and will agree to be locked up for 18 months after closing.
Following the transaction, Waystar expects to maintain a strong balance sheet with an estimated adjusted net leverage ratio at transaction close of approximately 3.5x.
The transaction is anticipated to close by year-end 2025, subject to customary closing conditions and applicable regulatory approvals.
Preliminary Second Quarter 2025 Results
Waystar expects second quarter 2025 revenue to be approximately $271 million, representing approximately 15% year-over-year growth.
The foregoing estimates are preliminary and unaudited and based on management’s initial analysis of operations for the quarter. Waystar looks forward to sharing additional information regarding the company’s second quarter 2025 results as previously scheduled on July 30, 2025.
Advisors
Barclays is serving as exclusive financial advisor, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is serving as legal advisor to Waystar.
J.P. Morgan Securities is serving as exclusive financial advisor, and Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and Queen Saenz + Schultz PLLC are serving as legal advisors to Iodine.
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