This AI Founder Became A Billionaire By Building ChatGPT For Doctors

Forbes

Daniel Nadler started OpenEvidence to help physicians sort through a deluge of medical research. Now, he’s raised $210 million at a $3.5 billion valuation.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2025/07/15/this-ai-founder-became-a-billionaire-by-building-chatgpt-for-doctors/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, this AI founder became a billionaire by building ChatGPT for doctors.

00:08For doctors trying to stay abreast of the latest medical breakthroughs,

00:11reviewing the latest research is like being shot in the face with a water cannon.

00:16A new paper is published every 30 seconds. Trying to comb through it all to come up with a diagnosis

00:21or treatment plan that reflects the best current options while seeing 20 patients a day is a near

00:27impossible task. Daniel Nadler, co-founder and CEO of Open Evidence, told Forbes, quote,

00:34We talk about the golden age of biotechnology, where there are new drugs and better drugs developed

00:39all the time, but it's like the dark ages for physicians because of burnout. There is this

00:44enormous firehose of information they need to stay on top of, and the human brain is limited in its

00:49capacity to read millions of studies. So Nadler, a 42-year-old Harvard PhD who sold his previous

00:56company for $550 million back in 2018, set out to solve the problem with artificial intelligence.

01:03Now, the startup's proprietary algorithms search millions of peer-reviewed publications,

01:08including in top journals like the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American

01:13Medical Association, to help doctors find the best answers fast, with full citations to papers,

01:19so doctors can read more for themselves. The software is free for verified doctors to use

01:24and makes money through advertising, much like Google does. Kleiner Perkins billionaire chairman

01:30John Doerr, who invested in the company personally as well as through his firm, said, quote,

01:36I think Open Evidence looks like it's going to be for healthcare what Google was for the internet.

01:41He added, quote, It's the free-for-physician model that's the magic here.

01:45Since its founding in 2022, Miami-based Open Evidence has signed up 40% of doctors in the United States,

01:53or more than 430,000, and is adding new ones at a current rate of 65,000 per month.

02:00Its revenue from advertising is now coming in at an annualized rate estimated at $50 million.

02:06That's not huge, but thanks to the software's rapid adoption, investors are betting big.

02:11Open Evidence has raised $210 million, led by GV, Google's venture arm, and Kleiner Perkins,

02:19at a valuation of $3.5 billion, up from $1 billion at its last financing in February,

02:25Nadler told Forbes. Other storied VC firms like Co2, Conviction, and Thrive Capital also invested.

02:35The new investment makes Nadler, who owns roughly 60% of the company,

02:39a billionaire, with a net worth that Forbes estimates at $2.3 billion.

02:45Co-founder Zach Ziegler, the company's 30-year-old chief technology officer,

02:50owned some 10% of the business, worth about $350 million.

02:55Nadler was able to hold on to such a large stake by being its first seed investor,

03:00putting in some $10 million of his own money before raising any VC funding.

03:05Nadler said, quote,

03:07One of the great things about being a second-time entrepreneur is,

03:10I'm not an idiot. I think the second thing is going to be bigger than the first,

03:15so maybe the first $10 million should come from me. That's by far the smartest financial decision

03:20I made in my life. I wanted to bet on myself.

03:23The problem Open Evidence is addressing is enormous, and one that's only getting bigger.

03:29Medical literature is proliferating at a meteoric rate, doubling in size every five years as new

03:35treatment options like gene therapies are developed, and scientists learn more about how different

03:40diseases and drugs may interact with each other. Open Evidence isn't the first company to try to make

03:46sense of the overload of medical publications. Walter's Kluwer's UpToDate has been around for

03:51decades and has recently been incorporating AI, along with advice from experts, to do the same thing.

03:57But it is the first to build software that integrates AI from the start to make it easier

04:02for doctors to find answers to pressing clinical questions, and to do so far more accurately than

04:07ChatGPT. Doctors now use Open Evidence on some 8.5 million consultations a month.

04:14Because the tool isn't considered diagnostic, it doesn't need FDA approval, as algorithms used to

04:19detect strokes or sepsis in patients do. And since doctors can download it or use it online for free,

04:25it can bypass the lengthy and bureaucratic procurement process with hospitals or large group practices.

04:31That's helped the company sign up doctors at an even faster clip.

04:36For full coverage, check out Amy Feldman and Rashi Srivastava's piece on Forbes.com.

04:43This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes, thanks for tuning in.

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