Waystar Holding Corp at Barclays Global Technology Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Boy, I talk to our companies that are aspiring to a Rule of 40 and here we go on a Rule of 50, so that's a great highlight. I want to dig into some of the points that you mentioned just around the contours of the business like your acquisition of Iodine. But before we do that, right, I'd love to maybe do a little bit of a mini teach-in or a mini 101 here for tech investors just on the revenue cycle management space because I think it's another space that necessarily a lot of tech investors are following. And so as I've spent time with the company, folks in the industry really talk about front end, right, front end, mid-cycle back-end revenue cycle management. Maybe it will be really helpful as all of us have gone to a physician, a doctor or some sort of medical professional, maybe you can just walk us through an example. Let's say, I go see my primary care physician for an annual checkup. Maybe you could just walk us through what are some of the key tools that Waystar provides in that process in terms of what's front end, what's mid-cycle, what's back end, taking us from sort of the appointment all the way to reimbursement?

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : So I mean what I take away from that is that we've got a really complete platform. I think Iodine is going to add to that, right, which we'll touch on in a second. But also there's a lot of opportunity for automation, right, which is where I'm sure we're going to talk a little bit about AI in discussion as well. But maybe another foundational question I want to ask again, just for the benefit of our tech investor audience. I

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Yes, absolutely. Maybe to put a bow on sort of that volumetric part of the business, I think one of the things that Steve mentioned on the Q3 call was that health care utilization has been elevated, it seems like, for the better part of the past year. Again, maybe for us tech investors that aren't following your end customers as closely, what do you look at to sort of get reads on how utilization is trending? And how should we -- maybe relatedly, because you talked about sort of the move to high deductible plans, which is very topical. But how should we be thinking about the seasonality in that volumetric part of the business?

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Yes, that's really helpful, actually. I want to shift gears to AI a little bit, right, because it's clearly been topical for all of our application software companies. But I also think it's particularly topical in your end market because revenue cycle management is so process oriented. As you is that was the reason why I wanted to go through kind of the there different parts of the revenue cycle management process. So maybe, Matt, you could just talk to us about what generative or agentic AI looks like for Waystar in the next couple of years, perhaps leveraging some of what you walked us through in terms of your different parts of the workflow? Maybe we'll start there.

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst :

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Yes, absolutely. I mean it's funny, we've got a lot of coverage companies that are kind of talking about AI very conceptually. But in an industry like health care, where you can actually drive real dollars, real value, that's great to see. Maybe the follow-on question there is, how do we monetize it, right? Because you provide so much value to the health care industry. I mean, is this something where we can command maybe higher pricing for? Is it a separately billable SKU? How do we -- and there are multiple ways that you can monetize, but I'm just kind of curious, what's been the main driver of that 31%?

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : It's funny to cover a company that would have a saying of, well, we would spend our way to our margin target right? And it sounds like a very --

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Invest our way to our margin target, absolutely. Absolutely.

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Absolutely, and that's definitely shown. I want to wrap up with some financial questions here in a second. But I think that AI point was really interesting. Any questions here before we move on? Maybe just to move to a couple of financial questions here for you, Matt. I mean, clearly, this has been a strong year for growth. I think we've seen growth year-to-date in the mid-teens versus what we've seen historically kind of in the low double-digit growth, which you've just been so consistent with since the IPO. It's obviously early to guide to '26 and I'm not looking for a guide, but what are maybe some of the puts and takes that you want us thinking about from a growth perspective as we go into next year high level?

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Yes. Now, I wanted to ask you about that point about where you think the disconnect might be, but we hit on that. Maybe the last question I want to ask on then is on capital structure. I think we financed the Iodine deal with a combination of debt, equity and some cash on the balance sheet. And ever since the IPO, we've just done a really good job of steadily delevering the balance sheet. Should we expect to continue to see sort of -- as you and the Board kind of think about capital allocation, should we sort of expect to see a similar pace of delevering or anything else that you want to snow in capital allocation?

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Got it. Excellent. Well, there's so much to talk about there, but I think that's about all the time that we have left. Matt, Sue, thanks so much for being with us here today. Really enjoyed it. Yeah, absolutely.

Question: Saket Kalia - Barclays Services Corp - Analyst : Same here, Matt.