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One-Man Unicorns, Whoop, and Farewell to ASTP/ONC
April 6, 2026
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Together with
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“If it smells like a fish, looks like a fish, it’s probably… a fish.”
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Sword Intelligence GM of Care Orchestration Rik Renard
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We officially have our first one-man, billion-dollar AI startup, and it’s in healthcare… for better or worse.
It was hard to be online last week without stumbling across the New York Times profile on “How A.I. Helped One Man (and His Brother) Build a $1.8 Billion Company.”
The article tells a shimmering tale of AI entrepreneurship. The 41-year old founder took just two months, $20k, and a dozen AI tools to get his startup Medvi off the ground.
- Medvi plays at the intersection of two trends that seem almost engineered to mint new billionaires: agentic AI and GLP-1s.
- The online telehealth provider offers GLP-1s for weight loss, with an army of AI agents handling everything from website copy and design to ad images and customer service.
- It had 300 customers in its first month, generated $401M in its first full year (2025), and revenue is now on track to hit $1.8B after the founder doubled the headcount by hiring his brother.
Medvi is basically dropshipping healthcare. They’re in the business of acquiring customers, not delivering care. The entire clinical infrastructure runs through turnkey partners.
- CareValidate manages the physician licensing and prescriptions.
- OpenLoop handles the pharmacy fulfillment and shipping.
Here’s what NYT forgot to mention. The article notes that Medvi’s founder was “nervous to talk publicly” about the company and hasn’t exactly been waving his momentum around.
Some solid sleuthing from digital health’s finest offers a few hints as to why that might be:
- Medvi (or partners with a conveniently long leash) spun up 800+ fake doctor Facebook accounts to aggressively advertise their meds. Not great.
- They’re named in a lawsuit alleging a nationwide scheme to manufacture and promote a fraudulent, unapproved oral tirzepatide pill. Also not great, allegedly.
- Their onboarding accepted a user with a February 31st birthday, then told them they had a 94% chance of hitting their goal weight of 200lbs starting from 7’11” and 350lbs. Yikes.
Sam Altman called it. The OpenAI CEO was spot on with his prediction that AI would quickly let solo founders generate billions by eliminating the inefficiency seen at larger orgs. Unfortunately in healthcare, much of that “inefficiency” is in place to protect patients.
The Takeaway
Is it impressive that one founder and a little grayhat marketing can now do billions in revenue? Yes. Should we be dropshipping healthcare through predatory ad funnels? Probably not.
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The Virtual-First Playbook: Rural Health
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Start Practicing With a Partner
What began with notes now supports the work that surrounds them. From conversations to clinical questions and follow-ups, Heidi brings the full clinical day into one platform. See why clinicians across the country are making Heidi their trusted AI Care Partner.
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- Farewell to ASTP/ONC: HHS officially retired the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy and ASTP leadership role that was created in 2024. The move not only restores ONC as the sole agency overseeing advancing healthcare technology policies and regulations, it also eliminates the need to type hastily mashed together acronyms like ASTP/ONC. National Coordinator Dr. Thomas Keane will keep the position as HHS also moves the roles of chief technology officer, chief artificial intelligence officer, and chief data officer from ONC to its Office of the CIO.
- eMed Raises $200M: GLP-1 telehealth startup eMed closed a massive $200M Series A at a valuation of over $2B – double what one guy with no VC funding can accomplish in his garage. Company spokesperson and NFL legend Tom Brady said that he believes eMed’s empathic agentic AI platform, combined with the strength of its people and partners, represents “a true winning formula.” It’s not exactly clear what other differentiators eMed brings to the table outside of having former X CEO Linda Yaccarino at the helm.
- Legion Health AI Psychiatric Care: YC-backed AI psychiatry clinic Legion Health just became the first mental health company to secure regulatory authorization to let AI prescribe psychiatric medications. Legion got its start providing psychiatric care directly to patients and automated 95% of the administrative work in its “full-stack AI-native clinic,” which allowed it to scale to 2,500 patients without a single admin hire. Legion is now looking to bring its AI operating system to other mental health providers while evolving from AI-native clinics, to semi-autonomous care with clinician supervision, to fully autonomous care.
- AI to Predict No-Shows: Nothing disrupts radiology workflows more than no-shows, and a new study in Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology shows that AI can help predict them, barely. Researchers used historical no-show data to develop a half-dozen models for predicting them, finding that the best model showed only moderate predictive power (AUC = 0.71), which the authors said reflects the inherent complexity in forecasting human behavior. Factors that boosted chances of patients not showing up included a past history of missed appointments, lead time between scheduling and exam date, and appointment confirmation status.
- Whoop Series G: Whoop locked in $575M of Series G funding at a juicy $10.1B valuation to accelerate its mission of “unlocking human performance and healthspan globally.” A couple big-name healthcare players joined the round to align themselves with that mission, most notably Abbott and Mayo Clinic. The fresh funds will help Whoop continue adding to its user base (that’s already 2.5M members strong) as it expands into more use cases outside of fitness by using its treasure trove of biometric data to deliver predictive health insights at scale.
- Ambience Chart Chat for Nursing: Ambience just introduced its first AI copilot designed specifically for inpatient nurses, and it’s already in pilot at Cleveland Clinic. Chart Chat for Nursing lets nurses ask plain-language questions about a patient and get immediate, citation-backed answers. Cognitive overload at the bedside has been contributing to a surge of nurses planning to leave the profession, and Chart Chat for Nursing gives them an easy way to get a comprehensive view of their patients without having to synthesize information from the chart.
- Sutter Goes Live With Emmie: Epic casually announced on LinkedIn that Sutter Health is the first health system to go live with its Emmie AI chatbot for patients. Emmie answers patients’ health questions within the privacy and context of their medical record via MyChart or text, and Sutter is leveraging it to help prep patients for appointments, tailor agendas to their needs, and answer any questions that come up after the visit. It also sounds like Emmie won’t take very long to reach more patients across the country.
- Vox Clearance: Noah Labs received FDA breakthrough device designation for Vox, its algorithm that can detect heart failure from a five second voice recording. Vox was designed to detect worsening heart failure weeks before hospitalization by analyzing subtle vocal changes in daily voice clips. Noah is gearing the tech towards enabling earlier interventions and reducing readmissions in rural and resource-limited settings.
- The State of Autism Care: April is Autism Acceptance and Awareness month, and a new piece in the Economist provides a great overview of the current state of the market. The autism world has been gaining more attention as demand soars for individualized care, new players rush into the space (both good and bad actors), and the TikTok-ification of the condition makes it more normalized and celebrated. That’s all happening against the backdrop of “a deeply flawed system” with incentives that push up costs, and state budgets are straining under the burden.
- EHR Alerts for Valve Disease: A joint effort by Medtronic and Tempus, the ALERT trial demonstrated that automated EHR notifications significantly improve the timely management of aortic stenosis and mitral regurgitation. Using Tempus’ AI-enabled platform to flag unreferred patients, the system increased 90-day heart team evaluations or interventions to 24.3%, compared to 19.9% in usual care. The strategy effectively mitigated referral delays and undertreatment and provided clinicians with the data needed to meet critical 90-day quality metrics for valvular heart disease.
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State of Payer Enrollment and Credentialing
Over half of provider orgs are losing revenue due to credentialing delays – with many missing out on over $1M annually. Medallion’s new report unpacks the forces quietly undermining operational and financial performance, and how leaders across the industry are addressing them. Check out the full report to get insights tailored to your role and org type.
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- Abridge & Availity Redefine Payer-Provider Synergy: Abridge is teaming up with Availity to redefine payer-provider synergy at the point of conversation. The collaboration aligns Abridge’s evidence-aware intelligence with Availity’s real-time health information network to create a first-of-its-kind prior authorization experience, with a shared understanding between patients, providers, and payers. Find out how Abridge and Availity are extending conversational intelligence across the revenue cycle.
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- 8 Keys to Gain an AI Edge in VBC: As value-based care models evolve and competition intensifies, healthcare leaders are seeking practical strategies to improve performance across risk, quality, and financial outcomes. Head over to Navina’s roundup of eight key insights from VBC leaders to learn how aligning AI-powered tools with organizational priorities and clinician needs can help secure a measurable competitive edge in value-based care.
- The Perfect Moment for Digital Health: With expanded support for remote care, digital health is positioned to play a central role in value-based models. Check out Withings’ latest overview to learn how connected technologies can help reduce preventable events while improving care quality and efficiency.
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