Elizabeth Holmes’ partner raises millions for new biotech testing startup

The partner of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has raised millions of dollars for an artificial intelligence startup hoping to introduce a product that can be used in medical testing and other settings, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the endeavor who could not speak publicly because the company has not yet officially launched. The company is called Haemanthus, which is Greek for “blood flower.”

Holmes, a former Silicon Valley star, is serving an 11-year sentence in federal prison for misleading investors about her blood-testing startup Theranos, once heralded as a breakthrough in laboratory science before its core technology proved faulty.

Since being imprisoned at a federal facility in Bryan, Texas, Holmes has been providing advice to her partner, Billy Evans, on the startup, according to the sources. The precise nature of Holmes’ supporting Evans on the venture is unclear.

About a dozen people are part of the startup. Some of those working on the company formerly worked with Evans at Luminar Technologies, which develops sensors for autonomous vehicles, according to the company’s patent and Delaware incorporation paperwork. Evans has raised money mostly among friends, family and other supporters so far, according to one of the sources.

Holmes’s support for her partner’s foray into biotech is striking, given she is serving a federal prison sentence for fraud in that same field.

Over the course of her nearly four-month criminal trial, Holmes insisted she did not commit any crimes, despite evidence presented by the government and witness testimony suggesting she purposely deceived investors and tried to cover it up, not long after she was plastered on the covers of magazines and drew comparisons to Steve Jobs.

From prison, Holmes continues to fight. On Thursday, a federal appeals court upheld her conviction.

Holmes, the mother of two, named one of her children Invicta, Latin for “invincible.”

In addition to Holmes’s fraud conviction, a separation investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission led to her being banned from serving as an officer or director of any public company for a decade as part of a March 2018 settlement. The prohibition does not affect her ability to help run a private company, but a source familiar with Haemanthus said she is not planning to take a formal role helping Evans run the company.

Still, she is plotting a post-prison return to the healthcare industry.

Holmes told People magazine in February that she intends to resume her career in biotech when she is released from prison and that she has been writing patents for new inventions while behind bars.

Haemanthus declined to comment. A lawyer for Holmes did not reply to a request for comment.

Haemanthus is in its early stages, according to one person with knowledge of the company. Currently, the company is using diagnose ALS, light detection technology that can essentially guide AI sensors to conduct medical tests, according to the source and a patent the company was granted in January.

The company is focused on something called Raman spectroscopy, which has been shown to help diagnose ALS, also called Lou Gehrig’s disease, as well as some forms of cancer. It has also been used to discover improvised explosive devices on battlefields.

Haemanthus hopes to bring the cost of the technology down and to take it out of research labs to make it commercially available to patients, though what the potential consumer product would actually look like is still under development.

The company’s January patent said the light detection tool can be used to test “biological material,” citing examples including sweat, urine, saliva. The technology can also conduct diagnostic tests using a small sample of blood.