Stedi CEO Zack Kanter on building a $142M-funded healthcare clearinghouse from auto parts roots
Mar 26, 2026 with Zack Kanter
Key Points
- Stedi, a healthcare clearinghouse processing tens of millions of administrative transactions monthly, has raised $142 million by solving EDI problems Kanter encountered while running an auto parts business in Taiwan.
- Unexpected demand from small doctor and dentist offices using AI-assisted coding tools suggests physicians are building their own revenue cycle management systems outside Stedi's core B2B model.
- The 125-person company distributes engineering and product staff across the US rather than require in-office work, reasoning that forced proximity would eliminate 99% of potential hires.
Summary
Zack Kanter's path to building a healthcare clearinghouse runs through Taiwanese auto parts factories and a 2011 frustration with EDI software.
Kanter is the founder and CEO of Stedi, a healthcare clearinghouse that processes the administrative transactions underpinning the US healthcare system. When a patient hands over an insurance card at a doctor's office, a real-time eligibility check fires in the background to confirm coverage and co-pay details. When a visit ends, a claim goes out and an adjudication message comes back. Stedi handles those transactions at scale, processing tens of millions per month. The company positions itself as the Stripe of healthcare, selling primarily to other technology companies rather than directly to providers.
From auto parts to EDI
Kanter didn't come from healthcare. He built a brand manufacturing auto parts in Taiwan and China, selling to O'Reilly Auto Parts, Amazon, and other retailers. Around 2011, transaction volume made manual entry unworkable, so he asked his retail partners for API specs to automate order processing. Every one of them wrote back asking what an API was.
That dead end led him into the world of X12 EDI, the transaction standard that powers retail, logistics, and supply chain. Frustrated with the existing EDI tooling, he had his own system built for around $50,000, then sold the auto parts business to a private equity firm and started Stedi, with the name reflecting its EDI roots.
He originally planned to raise $500,000, bumped that to $1 million as a margin of safety, and has now raised $142 million in total.
Vibe coding revenue cycle management
One unexpected signal: small and medium-sized doctor and dentist offices have started signing up directly, outside Stedi's core B2B model. After speaking with these customers, Kanter found that physicians are using AI-assisted coding tools to build their own revenue cycle management systems. It's dozens of practices, not thousands, but it's happening.
Scale and hiring
Stedi has roughly 125 people, distributed across the US with clusters in New York and Kanter based in the Bay Area. The company is hiring engineers and product staff. Kanter argues that requiring in-person work effectively eliminates 99% of the potential hiring pool, a trade-off Stedi has decided isn't worth making.