The romantic partner of Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes has launched a start-up that sounds eerily similar to the venture that landed his girlfriend behind bars.
California hotel heir Billy Evans’ new company is a blood-testing company that markets itself as “the future of diagnostics,” offering “a radically new approach to health testing,“ according to The New York Times. In other words, exactly what Theranos said it would do.
Holmes is even advising the start-up from the Texas prison where she is serving out an 11-year prison sentence for fraud, sources told NPR.
For Holmes’ Silicon Valley venture, it was all a lie. The firm’s purported revolutionary new tech, which was supposed to enable a multitude of blood tests from just one prick, didn’t actually exist.
Before the fraud was exposed in 2018, the start-up had raised over $700 million, earned a valuation of $10 billion, and landed Holmes a personal net worth of $4.5 billion. In 2022, she was convicted and sentenced to more than a decade behind bars.
The story of Holmes’ massive scam has captivated audiences—spawning books, podcasts, and even The Dropouta 2022 series starring Amanda Seyfried whose title is a reference to Holmes’ decision to leave Stanford to found Theranos. Seyfried won an Emmy and a Critics Choice Award for her portrayal of Holmes.
The name of Evans’ company is Haemanthus, which is Greek for “blood flower.” He is currently presenting to investors in an attempt to gather $50 million in funding to fuel the start-up, which has set its sights on nothing less than “human health optimization,” according to marketing materials obtained by the Times.
Materials from Evans’ pitch say that the company has invented a prototype of a device that can test blood, saliva, or urine for disease biomarkers in a matter of seconds. The firm plans to first go after the market for pets before turning to humans.
The device bears a striking resemblance to the one touted as revolutionary by Holmes, per the Times. Evans’ pitch reportedly does not mention his connection to the Theranos founder.
Several high-profile investors have already passed on Haemanthus, including Facebook investor James Breyer and billionaire Michael Dell’s venture capital company, the Times reported.
“In diagnostics, we’ve long held that the difference between a compelling story and a great company lies in scientific defensibility and clinical utility,” Breyer told the Times.
He has managed to raise nearly $20 million in funds from both friends and established investors in Austin and San Francisco, according to the investor materials.
Evans, 33, met Holmes, 41, in 2017 while she was being investigated by federal authorities. Although he was initially skeptical, they swiftly fell in love. He lives in Austin, Texas, with the two young children that he shares with Holmes.
Evans is the heir to a hospitality company founded by his grandparents, which now operates three luxury hotels. He graduated from MIT and previously worked for a self-driving car start-up called Luminar.
He incorporated Haemanthus in Delaware a year and a half ago, the Times reported, although the company operates out of his neighborhood in Austin. It appears to have around 10 employees, the paper reported.
Evans’ LinkedIn profile says that he is working at a “stealth startup,” meaning that his company is currently trying to keep a low profile.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Haemanthus for comment through its corporate filing representative.
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