In 2011, in Warren, New Jersey, a healthcare technologist named Aarti Vaishnav built a piece of software as a favor. Not a pitch deck favor. A real one. A friend running a Physical Therapy program was buried under clinical placements, compliance paperwork, and inbox chaos. Aarti Vaishnav saw the mess, wrote code, and solved a problem that higher education had quietly accepted as normal. That favor became Exxat, and fifteen years later it just pulled a minority growth investment from Accel-KKR without giving up the wheel.
On January 22, 2026, Exxat announced the deal. The amount stayed private. The intent did not. Accel-KKR, the Menlo Park firm known for scaling vertical software with founder respect, stepped in as a minority partner. Greg Williams of Accel-KKR framed the moment clearly. Healthcare education sits at the collision point of workforce shortages, regulatory pressure, and outdated infrastructure. Exxat lives in that collision every day and keeps traffic moving.
What makes this story hit is how Exxat got here. No blitzscaling theatrics. No institutional money for most of its life. Exxat crossed $32.6 million in annual recurring revenue with 40 percent year over year growth by 2025, serving more than 1,600 academic programs, 500 institutions, 10,000 clinical affiliates, and over 400,000 learners. More than eighty percent of Physical Therapy schools in the United States already run through Exxat. That is not momentum. That is gravity.
The founding team reads like a long game played correctly. Aarti Vaishnav leads as Founder and Chief Executive Officer. Kunal Vaishnav, confirmed as Chief Operating Officer, runs sales, operations, and growth. Vaibhav Bora drives innovation as Chief Innovation Officer. They met on their first day of college in India in 1995. Three decades later, they are still building together, now with ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, TX-RAMP Level 2, and ISO IEC 42001 certifications backing an AI-powered platform that handles curriculum, placements, compliance, credentialing, and accreditation inside one system.
Exxat Prism, Exxat One, and Exxat Approve do not exist to sound impressive. They exist to eliminate forty hours of paperwork per student, cut preceptor review time in half, and let three administrators manage hundreds of learners without burning out. Leo, the AI assistant launched in 2024, works inside those workflows instead of pretending software is the workflow.
Accel-KKR capital will accelerate product depth, expand discipline coverage, and strengthen the academic to practice network without changing who Exxat answers to. Aarti Vaishnav once turned down a $30 million acquisition to protect customers. This deal keeps that posture intact while raising the ceiling.
