Lefkofsky, the founder and CEO of Tempus, spoke with Forbes about the IPO and the company, which is built on a massive trove of AI-trained patient and genomic data.A dozen years after taking Groupon public, billionaire Eric Lefkofsky is listing Tempus, built on a massive trove of AI-trained health data.he hoped health analytics and precision medicine company Tempus AI would be his “legacy project.” It’s currently his most valuable asset—and his fourth company to go public.
“I’m excited to keep running the company in our next period of our story, as a public company,” Lefkofsky toldin a call on Friday morning. “We're still in such early days of applying any form of AI to healthcare. There's so much to do and so much benefit that can be derived by patients, which is an amazing place to be.”
Tempus is one of at least nine companies Lefkofsky has founded or cofounded— it also acquired approximately 20% of his most recent startup, drug development firm Pathos AI, for around one cent per share, or approximately $4 million. But Lefkofsky is optimistic about Tempus, given its impressive revenue growth. If Tempus remains on its current trajectory, the company expects to become profitable in the “not-too-distant future,” he says.
Tempus is entering a not-so-friendly IPO market and in a crowded competitive space, including public companies Guardant Health and Neogenomics, as well as ConcertAI, a subsidiary of billionaire Romesh Wadhwani’s SymphonyAI. On Tuesday, Guardant filed a lawsuit against Tempus, alleging that four of Tempus’ products use liquid biopsy technology that violates some of Guardant’s patents. “We intend to vigorously defend ourselves in this matter,” Tempus wrote in the filing.