UPDATE: Theranos Investor Describes How Relationship with Holmes Soured Over Time
SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) -- New testimony in the Theranos fraud trial on Wednesday showed how one relationship Elizabeth Holmes had with one Texas investor soured over time, and then sweetened again when the company needed more money.
Alan Eisenman is a retired money manager from Houston who was an early investor in Theranos, putting down $1.2 million in combination with his wife and adult children in 2006.
On Wednesday, he testified that he would speak often with Holmes on the phone. She claimed Theranos had billionaire Larry Ellison as a board member and advisor and that the company would grow to $60 million in revenue in 2007 and $200 million in 2008.
"He's pointing the finger directly at Elizabeth Holmes, so based on those claims and representations she made, he invested in her company," said former prosecutor and legal analyst Michele Hagan.
By 2010, Eisenman said there were signs of trouble as Holmes stopped taking his calls. Prosecutors showed the jury a Holmes email to him that said: "We don't have quarterly meetings with other investors, many who invested a much greater amount than you."
Eisenman said he wanted to pull his investment, but there was no mechanism to do it.
"This goes along with the prosecution and the other evidence that when people
start asking questions of Elizabeth Holmes, she shuts them down," Hagan said.
But Eisenman said the relationship improved again when the company needed
more money in 2013.
Theranos was riding a wave of good press at the time and Eisenman was led to believe that its technology was working. So, he invested another $100,000.
But by 2015, he was getting ignored again.
In one of the final emails, Holmes' business partner Sunny Balwani told him to stop contacting the company or the responses would next be coming from Theranos lawyers.
Prosecutors told the judge Wednesday that they may be able to wrap up their case in the trial as early as next week.
