Billy Evans, the romantic partner of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, has reportedly raised millions of dollars for his new company Haemanthus. Haemanthus has been pitched as a health-testing company that can make diagnoses from users’ blood, urine and saliva, according to New York Times. This pitch is strikingly similar to that of Theranos, which promised to conduct a variety of medical tests on tiny amounts of blood drawn from pricked fingers. This is notable since in 2022, Holmes was sentenced to 11 years in prison for defrauding investors.
Theranos was launched in 2003 after Holmes’s health-testing tech startup received significant investment from high-profile multimillionaires. She claimed her company had developed technology to rapidly and accurately test small amounts of blood to provide diagnoses.
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Theranos was eventually valued at $9 billion in 2014, however a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed Holmes’ claims were mostly false, and the blood testing setup provided false results. The company was eventually dissolved in 2018, and Holmes and the company’s president were charged with fraud. Evans — who is an heir to a hotel fortune — met Holmes in 2017 amid the fraud investigations. Holmes and Evans have two children together, who reportedly live in Texas with Evans, while Holmes is serving time in a federal prison about two hours away.
Haemanthus’ marketing materials show that the company’s technology will use a laser to scan blood, saliva or urine from pets and “analyze the samples on a molecular level.” The technology then would require only a matter of seconds to detect illnesses, cancer or infections.
Several investors had passed on the pitch, according to a report by The New York Times. Early Facebook investor Jim Breyer told The Times that his team was asked to invest but declined “for many of the same reasons we passed twice on Theranos.” However, Evans, who is reportedly being advised by Holmes, managed to raise almost $20 million from friends and other investors.