Overview
Leerink Partners opened coverage on Waystar Holding (NASDAQ: WAY) with an Outperform rating and assigned a $43.00 price target, a level that implies about a 62% increase from the company's current share price of $26.56. The research house underlined a number of structural strengths it believes support further growth and make the current share price attractive relative to the firm's long-term outlook.
Drivers cited by the analyst
Leerink highlighted Waystar's broad market reach as a primary growth lever, noting that the company's scale creates opportunities for deeper cross-penetration within its installed base and for expanding customer relationships. The firm referenced Waystar's recent revenue momentum - a reported revenue growth rate of 14.75% - and expectations for the company to be profitable this year, drawing on InvestingPro-derived data.
The research note pointed to the Iodine acquisition as a strategic step that strengthened Waystar's artificial intelligence capabilities and extended the firm's end-to-end functionality, positioning it to offer health systems a more comprehensive payments and revenue-cycle solution.
Customer mix, retention and liquidity
Leerink emphasized Waystar's diverse customer base, saying that this diversity has contributed to upside in net revenue retention and delivered greater visibility into multi-year growth paths. The firm acknowledged approaching headwinds - specifically, anticipated FY26 effects tied to the end of HIX subsidies and tougher year-over-year comparisons related to benefits previously seen from the Change Healthcare outage - but noted that Waystar's liquidity cushion provides operational flexibility. The company reported a current ratio of 3.89, which the analyst views as supportive when navigating potential near-term disruptions.
Valuation and recent stock performance
Leerink's $43 price target is rooted in a valuation multiple of roughly 16 times its Calendar Year 2027 EV/EBITDA estimate, based on an EBITDA figure of about $592 million. The firm characterized recent share weakness as creating an appealing risk/reward setup for what it describes as a steady-growth business with robust EBITDA margins.
Additional market-data commentary noted that InvestingPro signals the stock is currently undervalued and in oversold territory after a 10.18% decline over the prior week, and that share levels were trading close to a 52-week low of $26.20.
Product and competitive positioning
Separately, Waystar has added 'agentic intelligence' capabilities to its healthcare payments platform, upgrading its AltitudeAI product. The company reports that its AI tools prevented $15.5 billion in claim denials within a one-year period by applying analyses drawn from an extensive dataset of U.S. hospital discharges.
Several other brokerages and research groups have also issued favorable coverage or initiated ratings: BofA Securities remains at a Buy rating with a $52 price target; Wells Fargo initiated coverage with an Overweight rating and a $41 target while noting high-margin growth potential alongside some execution risk tied to recent acquisitions; RBC Capital started coverage with an Outperform rating and a $44 target; and UBS set a Buy rating with a $41 price target, each underscoring Waystar's positioning in AI-driven automation and hospital revenue cycle management.
Context and takeaways
Leerink frames its initiation as a forward-looking assessment that leans on Waystar's revenue acceleration, improved product capability following the Iodine acquisition, diversified customer relationships and a conservative liquidity profile. The firm balances those strengths against acknowledged near-term comparables and subsidy-related pressures in FY26, and uses a 2027 EBITDA estimate to underpin its target multiple and price objective.