Quote · The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: $5BN in Revenue, 7 to 7,000 Employees in 9 Months, 206,000 Tests in a Single Day: The Craziest Story in Startups: Curative with Fred Turner
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How Do You Go From Testing Cows to STDs, Sepsis and COVID?
At 16:57 · chapter starts 7:00
Fred's first company, TL Biolabs, began after he won the UK National Science & Engineering Competition and was approached by a farmer to test his cows' genetics for muscle yield and milk production. He applied to Y Combinator six days before the deadline — on the advice of a YC alum he met at an AgTech conference in San Francisco — and joined the Summer 2016 batch, raising a $1.65 million seed from Andreessen Horowitz's bio fund. But a Series A proved impossible once investors ran the TAM: 100 million US cows at $15-20 per test caps the market at $1.5 billion. The team pivoted the core DNA-testing technology first to high-throughput STD testing, identifying antibiotic resistance in sexually transmitted infections as a compelling and growing problem. Fred notes STD rates are continuing to rise despite people having less sex — a detail that generates genuine surprise from Harry. A second pivot followed into sepsis diagnostics, a market Fred describes with striking precision: bacteria in the bloodstream trigger the immune system to destroy the body's own organs, and every untreated hour raises mortality by 12% [1] — Fred Turner "Sepsis: 12% mortality increase per hour untreated: Every hour sepsis goes untreated, a patient's mortality risk increases by approximately …" 14:14 . The company renamed Shield, raised a Series A, built working prototypes, and pursued FDA approval — before a strategic acquirer's CEO killed a signed term sheet after three weeks of document work. With three weeks of cash left, Fred sold the company's hard-won CLIA lab license for $150,000 and began winding down. Five months later, that same license would have been worth $27 million [2] — Fred Turner "I sold that license to a company in San Diego for $150,000 to pay some of the creditors. And then 5 months later, acquired a company in Sou…" 15:45 .
Fred Turner's path from sequencing dairy cows in northern England to building a $5B COVID testing company ran through Y Combinator, a failed sepsis diagnostics startup, and a chance tweet from a longevity researcher. Every company failure was a prerequisite for the next pivot.
Every hour sepsis goes untreated, a patient's mortality risk increases by approximately 12%, making rapid diagnosis critical.
Fred Turner sold a hard-won CLIA lab license for $150,000 to pay creditors when his sepsis company died. Five months later, he had to pay $27 million to acquire an equivalent license when COVID hit. The same asset, priced by the pandemic.
Fred Turner sold a critical CLIA lab license for $150,000 during wind-down, then was forced to acquire an equivalent license 5 months later for $27 million when COVID hit.
