At 17, Zachariah Reitano told his father something most teenagers would never say to a parent. His father was a doctor who specialised in men's sexual health, and he understood at once that the symptom, so young, might be a warning about something bigger.
It was. Secondary profiles of Reitano describe an undiagnosed heart condition behind it. One account has him checking his own pulse mid-workout, noticing it was irregular, and collapsing. A cardiac ablation followed. The medication he then needed carried the very side effect that had first sent him to his father. Reported accounts say he would have happily given up a drug for any other organ, but not the heart.
Secondary profiles of Reitano describe an undiagnosed heart condition behind it.
That is the hidden thread under Ro. The company is usually told as a growth story, but its founder's origin is a boy whose father happened to be the right kind of doctor. Most people are not that lucky. Reitano has reportedly said he wanted to recreate his father, a doctor who listens, as software, so that anyone could have that first honest conversation.
He launched it in October 2017 as Roman, with co-founders Saman Rahmanian and Rob Schutz, selling men's sexual health treatments online. General Catalyst wrote a $3.1 million seed cheque. In 2018 the name became Ro, a signal that the company meant to be more than one product, and FirstMark led an $88 million Series A.
Then came pandemic years of speed. In 2020 Ro partnered with Pfizer on sildenafil and raised $200 million, bought an at-home blood draw company, and then Modern Fertility, reported at more than $225 million. In March 2021 a $500 million round valued it at $5 billion.
The price of scale came later, and publicly. A New York subway campaign was called too evocative. GLP-1 drugs turned Ro into a weight-loss business just as supply ran short, and a 2025 campaign with Serena Williams drew widespread controversy. Even so, Ro struck deals with Eli Lilly in December 2024 and Novo Nordisk in January 2026 to offer their drugs. The $5 billion mark is more than five years old, and no newer one has surfaced.
For a first-time founder, the useful part is where the idea came from. Reitano did not start from a market map. He started from the one night someone took a symptom seriously, and asked how to make that happen for everyone else.