He Started His First Company at 17 — and Turned Down $12 Million for It at 19
Augustus Holm discusses the heartfelt mission of CheckRx, his AI-native Medicare platform designed to simplify Medicare for seniors.
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The U.S. Medicare system loses tens of billions annually, not from fraud, but from seniors choosing suboptimal health plans due to a system that’s become too complex. A San Diego founder, Augustus Holm, first encountered it up close at 13, helping his grandmother sort through 500-page prescription binders at the kitchen table.
Now 20, Holm is among a cohort of Gen Z entrepreneurs redefining what a successful startup looks like, building companies around problems they know firsthand rather than markets they’ve spotted from a distance. CheckRx, his AI-native Medicare platform, is quietly doing something the industry has resisted for decades: making the system legible.
“The same transparency issues that inflate drug prices are inflating Medicare costs,” Holm says. “Insurance brokers are paid more to push certain plans regardless of patient fit, and seniors have no easy way to know that’s happening. We’re fixing the information gap.”
Photo Credit: Mark Morera
The platform saves the average agent 950 hours a year by automating key workflows such as plan comparisons and member retention. Seniors access the service for free, with the choice of an AI or human-assisted process.
Holm describes CheckRx as “the infrastructure for what Medicare will look like next” — turning CMS data into actionable decisions and automating back-end processes so the focus can stay on the people.
“Agents love being able to talk to seniors; they love the human part,” he said. “We do the boring stuff and let them focus on the people.”
Photo Credit: Hernan Cazares
He recalled a user who managed prescription coverage for 10 family members. In a single two-minute CheckRx session, the man found a plan that cut costs across the board and included grocery stipends. “When he saw how fast it was, having experienced it himself as just a normal person trying to help out their family, it was so cool to see his face light up,” Holm said.
CheckRx raised a $750,000 pre-seed round after Holm bootstrapped the early build using proceeds from a trading algorithm he wrote at 15. At 19, he turned down a $12 million acquisition offer.
Holm also founded the Youth Philanthropy Council, which he calls California’s largest youth-run nonprofit. The organization has raised $3.3 million for healthcare and education causes since he started it at 13. Working directly with local community health clinics, hospitals, and health plans gave him an early window into how dysfunctional the system really is at ground level — and made the problems CheckRx is solving feel less like a market opportunity and more like an obligation.
The U.S. Medicare system loses tens of billions annually, not from fraud, but from seniors choosing suboptimal health plans due to a system that’s become too complex. A San Diego founder, Augustus Holm, first encountered it up close at 13, helping his grandmother sort through 500-page prescription binders at the kitchen table.
Now 20, Holm is among a cohort of Gen Z entrepreneurs redefining what a successful startup looks like, building companies around problems they know firsthand rather than markets they’ve spotted from a distance. CheckRx, his AI-native Medicare platform, is quietly doing something the industry has resisted for decades: making the system legible.
“The same transparency issues that inflate drug prices are inflating Medicare costs,” Holm says. “Insurance brokers are paid more to push certain plans regardless of patient fit, and seniors have no easy way to know that’s happening. We’re fixing the information gap.”
