Summary:
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A self-taught entrepreneur from LA built a billion-dollar company alone using AI and strategic partnerships.
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Medvi, a GLP-1 telehealth provider, hit $401 million in sales in 2025 and is projected to reach $1.8 billion in 2026.
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Gallagher used AI to handle everything from coding to customer service, achieving rapid growth and impressive profits.
A self-taught entrepreneur from Los Angeles has done what many in Silicon Valley said was coming but few expected to see so soon, building a billion-dollar company essentially alone.
It took Matthew Gallagher just two months, $20,000, and more than a dozen artificial intelligence tools to launch Medvi, a GLP-1 telehealth provider that hit $401 million in sales in 2025 and is now on track to reach $1.8 billion in 2026.
Gallagher used AI to write the code powering his platform, produce website copy, generate images and videos for ads, and handle customer service. He also built AI systems to analyze his business performance in real time.
Rather than building a medical infrastructure from scratch, Gallagher leveraged CareValidate and OpenLoop Health to handle doctors, pharmacies, shipping, and compliance. His focus was entirely on branding, marketing, and customer acquisition. Medvi charges as little as $179 for a first month’s supply of GLP-1 drugs, competitive with the broader market.
The New York Times was given access to Medvi’s financials to verify its revenue and profits. By the end of 2025, the company had amassed 250,000 customers and posted a net profit margin of 16.2%, generating roughly $65 million in profit. For comparison, Hims and Hers, which has over 2,400 employees, posted a net profit margin of 5.5% the same year.
Gallagher used tools including ChatGPT, Claude and Grok to build out Medvi’s website and operations.
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Medvi opened for business in September 2024, entering a market already being served by established players like Hims and Ro, both of which had expanded into GLP-1 drugs. From the beginning, Gallagher said, “growth was insane.”
Many observers have been quick to note that the GLP-1 market itself deserves as much credit as the AI toolkit. Critics have pointed out that Gallagher chose a sector where customers are desperate, built an interface for connecting with a drug prescription provider, executed strong marketing, and scaled rapidly as a result.
Still, the financials are hard to argue with.
Medvi scaled from 300 customers in its first month to 1,300 in its second, with just one person running all operations before Gallagher brought on his brother Elliot as the company’s sole employee.
Gallagher is now reinvesting profits into expansion. In February, Medvi launched a men’s health line including erectile dysfunction drugs, which reached 50,000 customers in its first month. The company has since added healthy meal delivery and is preparing to enter women’s health, including hormone therapy.
The story lands roughly two years after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman publicly predicted that AI would eventually enable a single person to build a billion-dollar company. Fortune described the Medvi story as proof that AI is enabling ultra-lean, hyper-scalable companies by compressing the traditional startup playbook.
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OpenLoop’s CEO Jon Lensing, one of Gallagher’s key partners, summed up the reaction among those watching the company grow: “Matthew’s native tongue seems to be A.I.”
