Reporter of the Economic Business: Cai Ding Editor of the Economic Business Business: He Xiaotao Zheng Zhi
From a technological genius who changed the world to a frustrated person who lost all the money of investors, sometimes there is only a short distance between them. Perhaps LeTV investors know this best.
The protagonist of the story we are going to tell today is Elizabeth Holmes, a beauty born in the 1980s who stands in the halo of top students at Stanford University.
Daily Economic News (WeChat ID: nbdnews) once reported that the biotech company Theranos, she founded, had a valuation of over $9 billion. Many people once thought that the "nano blood drop" she advocated will change the future medical industry.
Elizabeth Holmes's conversation video screenshot
However, the financing of last Christmas still failed to save this huge bubble. According to court documents, the company's investors suffered a total loss of more than US$700 million (about RMB 4.6 billion).
It is shocking that there are many world-class celebrities on the list of "leeks" that have suffered losses, including media giant Murdoch, Wal-Mart founding family, former world richest man Carlos Slim and US Secretary of Education DeVos, all of whom "suffocated" Holmes' dream.
Many billionaires were brutally "cut"
The family of US Secretary of Education Betsey DeVos invested $100 million in Hiranos. Although DeVos had previously revealed in a government document that her family was an investor in Theranos, the scale of the investment was unknown at the time.
Current U.S. Secretary of Education DeVos (Photo source: Wall Street Journal)
DeVos and her husband's family holding company Windquest Group said, "The investment members of the DeVos family are very disappointed with Theranos." It should also be noted that DeVos' husband is Dick DeVos, the son of Richard DeVos, the co-founder of Amway.
, one of the richest families in the world, is also a victim of the Walton family, which is the descendant of Sam Walmart and Bud Walmart, founders of , Walmart, and Bud Walmart. The Walton family is the worst-hit investor—the family invested $150 million in Theranos through two companies.
According to the latest Forbes billionaire rankings, three members of the Walton family Jim Walton , Robertson Walton and Alice Walton ranked 14th, 15th and 16th with US$46.4 billion, US$46.2 billion and US$46 billion respectively.
Image source: Forbes
Daily Economic News (WeChat ID: nbdnews) The reporter noticed that Rupert Murdoch, the world's leading news tycoon, is the largest individual investor in Theranos. People familiar with the matter said that Murdoch had invested $125 million in the company in March 2015 and sold the shares back to the company at a price of $1 in early 2017. Murdoch received an additional $4 million from Theranos after the share repurchase agreement was reached with a hedge fund investor under the share repurchase agreement.
, and the hedge fund in San Francisco, called Partner Fund Management, invested $96 million in Theranos as early as early 2014. When the hedge fund sued Theranos for fraud in October 2016, Theranos finally agreed to settle the matter for $43 million, but neither admitted nor denied fraud charges against the company at the time.
Another hit was Carlos Slim, the former richest man in the world and Mexican telecom tycoon. However, he lost only $30 million. Between 2013 and 2015, Carlos Slim was named the richest man in the world by Fortune magazine many times. As of March 2018, he ranked seventh in the global richest list with a net worth of US$70.5 billion. His industries cover 13 industries including education, medical care, industrial manufacturing, transportation, real estate, media, and energy.
Carlos Slim (Photo source: Bloomberg)
In addition, NFL New England Patriots boss Robert Craft is also the victim. However, he lost only $1 million.
Well-known investors who suffered losses in the investment of Theranos (Photo source: Fortune)
The Wall Street Journal reported that the huge losses of many top investors in the same investment are indeed rare in history. It can also be seen from the above figure that these 11 well-known investors lost US$723.2 million (about RMB 4.6 billion) due to the failure to invest in Theranos.
The Fall of Silicon Valley Star Company
So, what kind of existence is this Theranos company? It can make so many "old drivers" in the investment industry miss the situation.
In fact, Theranos was considered a veritable star company in Silicon Valley 3 years ago.
In October 2015, 101 CEOs, investors and think tank members of Silicon Valley voted on "what startup will change the world." As a result, startup Theranos ranked second after Tesla.
is closely related to the fate of Theranos company. Elizabeth Holmes, a "female Jobs" with legendary experience. She not only has a classic surname, but her legendary life experience is even more amazing.
In 2003, 19-year-old Holmes took the initiative to drop out of Stanford in his sophomore year and invested in starting a business with the college tuition saved by his parents.
"Ten Years of Hardening a Sword". In 2014, the company was very prosperous and its valuation reached US$9 billion. At that time, Theranos had an "all-star board". In addition to founder Holmes, the founder, there were former US Secretary of State Kissinger, who was familiar to the Chinese people, and former US Secretary of Defense, Senator, Admiral and other major figures.
A large group of former government officials in their eighties and nineties came forward to stand up for a startup company with a beautiful woman in her early 30s. This wonder shocked the biology community in the United States. Holmes himself also became the year-end cover character of Forbes magazine in 2014.
Forbes magazine cover
Theranos' main focus is blood testing. Holmes once said she invented a breakthrough innovative technology that can complete comprehensive tests that can only be completed in a professional laboratory by collecting one or two drops of blood through her fingertips.
Theranos company developed blood extraction method. The picture on the right is a miniature blood storage container called "nanotainer" that is only about 1.29 cm in length (Photo source: Theranos website)
However, in the civil fraud charges against Holmes in March this year, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) directly alleged it as a lie that Theranos used commercial equipment produced by other companies to perform most of the blood tests.
Holmes (Photo source: Fortune)
At that time, Holmes neither admitted nor denied the allegations, but she returned most of her Theranos shares, waived control of the company, paid a fine of $500,000, and agreed to prohibit her from serving as a senior executive position in any listed company for a decade.
In an email to the company's shareholders on April 10 this year, Holmes made it clear that the company may be liquidated by August this year. Earlier in the day, Holmes also told most of the company's employees that they would leave Theranos after June 12 and that the company would not pay them any more, according to people familiar with the matter. At that time, Therenos had only 125 employees left.
Daily Economic News
