Lisa Peterson testified Tuesday that the DeVos family felt like Theranos Inc. was choosing them as much as they were choosing Theranos at the time they invested in the company in 2014.
Ms. Peterson said she got the sense during due diligence on a potential Theranos investment that the company was “hand-picking” a select few to invest, and looking for funds interested in partnering with them for the long term rather than trying to quickly monetize their investment.
“She was inviting us to participate in this opportunity,” said Ms. Peterson, who oversees private equity investments for a unit of RDV Corp., one of Betsy DeVos’s family offices.
She spoke about a visit to Theranos’s headquarters in 2014, which included Cheri DeVos having her blood tested. She said she thought Ms. DeVos got her results but she never saw them.
After spending four or five hours talking to Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and executive Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, Ms. Peterson said she caucused in the parking lot with her boss and DeVos family members before leaving. She said they had been considering going in for $50 million, but decided to double their planned investment after hearing that others planned to give that amount.
Ms. Peterson spoke about the claims from Theranos that most appealed to her, including hearing from Ms. Holmes that Theranos devices were being used on military helicopters and in clinical trials with pharmaceutical companies. She said they were given the impression Theranos could run 200-300 tests on its proprietary analyzer using a tiny amount of blood.
When they asked Ms. Holmes what risks lay ahead for Theranos, Ms. Peterson said they were told it would be executing on the rollout of Theranos blood centers in Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. pharmacies. She said they were never told the technology itself could be a problem.
The DeVos family fortune stems from Amway, a multilevel marketing company a member of the family co-founded in the late 1950s.
