Biggest takeaways
If you only have 30 seconds this week:
- Two-person companies with AI + outsourced specialists are structurally different (not a curiosity), with 16.2% vs 5.5% margins changing the unit economics of entire service industries.
- Construction AI adoption doubled from 17% to 38% in 12 months, yet 65% of firms still haven't started, with 499,000 missing workers closing the window fast.
- €800B ReArm Europe with 1-3 year deployment windows is reshaping Mittelstand supply chains, and single-company applications to AGILE are explicitly allowed.
This week: Medvi and the Two-Person Company
$1.8 billion in projected 2026 revenue. Two employees. A net margin of 16.2 percent.
Medvi isn't an anomaly — it is the clearest public example of a new operating model: one or two humans orchestrating AI agents and outsourced specialists. The numbers are forcing a rethink of what a "company" even is. When two people can run something this productive, the unit economics of entire service industries start to wobble.
When a superpower builds policy infrastructure around an idea, it stops being theoretical.
What matters for AV: the policy layer is catching up. China's national framework for one-person AI-native companies is live. a16z is funding the category. The question is no longer whether this works — it's who builds the next hundred of them, and in which industries.
Also this week
Construction's AI Adoption Doubled in 12 Months — Why 65% Still Haven't Started
OECD and Deloitte numbers: AI adoption on construction sites jumped from 17% to 38% year-over-year. That leaves 65% of firms with nothing in production — at the exact moment the industry is 499,000 workers short in the US alone. Meta's BoxCrete pilots hint at where this goes next.
€800B ReArm Europe — What It Means for German Mittelstand Suppliers
The European Commission's ReArm Europe plan isn't just a defense story. It is a €800B industrial program with 1-3 year deployment windows, and AGILE now accepts single-company applications. German Mittelstand suppliers who understand the procurement math early have a quiet, large opening.
Editor's note
Three stories. Different industries. Same pattern: the interesting edge is not where the biggest companies are paying attention. Medvi is two people in a space that thought it needed hundreds. Construction is the least-digitized industry on earth suddenly doubling AI use without the press noticing. ReArm Europe is moving faster than the consulting decks about it.
The common thread is that the "forgotten" part of each market is where the economics actually flip. That is the lens I want this newsletter to wear every week — not the loudest announcement, but the one that quietly changes the unit economics.
— Martin
From the scan
a16z just led a 5.8 million dollar seed round in Anchr, a platform automating supply chain workflows for food distributors. Not on our podcast yet. But the signal tracks: the specialist layer that builds the first industrial AI in a forgotten category tends to own a defensible wedge long before anyone notices the category existed. We are watching whether any European equivalent shows up in the next two quarters.
Sources & referenced
All sources and companies mentioned in this week's issue:
- Medvi — $1.8B revenue, 2 employees (AV Insight)
- Hims & Hers Health
- Alibaba
- Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
- Taskade
- Construction AI Adoption Doubled (AV Insight)
- OECD — Digital Construction data
- Deloitte — Engineering & Construction Outlook
- Meta BoxCrete pilots
- ReArm Europe and Mittelstand Suppliers (AV Insight)
- European Commission — ReArm Europe
- AGILE program (EU Defence)
- BCG — Defense Mittelstand study