Elizabeth Holmes’s Partner Raises Millions for Another Blood-Testing Startup

It seems history might be repeating itself — or at least rhyming uncomfortably. Billy Evans, the partner of convicted Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and father of her children, has reportedly raised nearly $20 million for a new startup called Haemanthus, a health-testing company that promises diagnostics from just a small sample of blood, urine, or saliva.

Sound familiar?

Evans, heir to a hotel fortune and Holmes’s partner since 2017, is pitching the business to investors as the future of ultra-fast, non-invasive medical testing. According to The New York Times, Haemanthus’s tech uses lasers to analyse biological samples at the molecular level, with the ambition to diagnose conditions like cancer or infections in mere seconds.

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The company even hints at future plans for a wearable version of the device — eventually for human use. But here’s the twist: Haemanthus plans to start with pet diagnostics first. So your dog might get a futuristic scan before you do.

The parallels to Theranos — Holmes’s infamous blood-testing startup once valued at $9 billion — are impossible to ignore. Like Theranos, Haemanthus claims it can detect illnesses from small bodily samples. Unlike Theranos, it’s entering a landscape far more sceptical, scarred by the fallout from Holmes’s high-profile fraud conviction.

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Back in 2018, Holmes and Theranos’s president were charged with defrauding investors after investigations revealed that their technology didn’t actually work. Holmes was eventually sentenced to 11 years in federal prison in 2022. Today, she’s serving her sentence in a Texas prison, while Evans reportedly lives nearby with their children.

Yet despite the cloud still hanging over Holmes’s legacy, Evans appears undeterred. Marketing materials reviewed by the Times show that Haemanthus is promising lightning-fast diagnostics and futuristic tech that some investors are already questioning. Several, understandably, have already passed on the pitch. But with Holmes rumoured to be informally advising the company, and $20 million already raised, there’s clearly still some appetite for moonshot medtech — even when the last one crash-landed.

The lesson here? While AI, wearable tech and diagnostic innovation are rapidly advancing, credibility still matters — especially in health tech. And with Haemanthus flirting with the same claims that sent Theranos down in flames, it’s fair to ask: is this a comeback story… or a reboot no one ordered?