From Quantgene to Sameday Health: How Felix Huettenbach Built a Consumer Testing Network

Felix Huettenbach is a German founder and investor whose path into COVID-19 testing began inside Quantgene, a cancer-detection company, before he co-founded the consumer testing network Sameday Health in 2020 and became its CEO. The shift from serving companies to serving the general public is the core of this story.

Background in brief

• Felix Huettenbach (Felix Hüttenbach), born 31 August 1993 in Germany, is a founder, investor, adventurer and YouTuber based in Dubai.
• Chief of Staff at Quantgene, which uses machine learning to detect cancers early from standard blood samples.
• Set up a COVID-19 testing unit for companies at Quantgene when the pandemic began.
• Co-founded Sameday Health in September 2020 and served as CEO, starting with one site in Venice, Los Angeles.
• Sameday Health had 55 locations and more than 1,000 employees by April 2022.

The Quantgene starting point

Quantgene's core work is cancer detection: the company focuses on detecting cancers early from standard blood samples using machine learning. Huettenbach joined as Chief of Staff, a role that typically sits close to leadership and touches many parts of an organisation.

Before that, he had built a broad toolkit. He studied Technology and Management at the Technical University of Munich, combining mechanical engineering and business administration, spent a term at UC Berkeley and later joined MIT's graduate program in entrepreneurial studies as an International Scholar. He had worked on the investment team at Aurelius Equity Opportunities in Munich, building financial models and market entry analyses, and had founded the fitness-technology company W8X in 2017.

Phase one: COVID-19 testing as a corporate service

When the pandemic began, Huettenbach set up a unit within Quantgene that offered COVID-19 testing to companies. Moving from cancer diagnostics into pandemic testing also fitted a habit he says dates back to childhood: looking for environments where he was far from the best.

The general public, however, also needed fast testing, and that need was the reason for the next step.

Phase two: opening to the public

In September 2020 Huettenbach co-founded Sameday Health, a separate company built for the general public, with a first testing site in Venice, Los Angeles, where it initially traded as Sameday Testing. The consumer model rested on several elements.

Walk-in access and online booking

People could walk into a site without an appointment. Sameday Health also offered online booking for those who wanted a fixed time.

Individual digital results

Each customer received the result digitally. According to the company, its scheduling and results platform sent automated alerts once a result was ready.

PCR and rapid tests

The company offered both PCR and rapid tests, letting customers pick what fit their needs.

Shopping centers and a drive-thru

In December 2020 Huettenbach's company named five flagship sites inside Westfield shopping centers, among them Westfield Annapolis and Westfield Old Orchard, as part of 30 new facilities planned across 11 states. Two months later it opened a drive-thru outside Tysons Corner Center in Virginia with the mall owner Macerich.

From the site to the doorstep

The consumer logic eventually reached people's homes. An at-home Concierge Service started in March 2021, and in November 2021, still under his leadership, Sameday Health House Calls let customers book a nurse through the app for testing and wellness services at home, in a hotel or at the office. The company positioned it as a more affordable alternative to traditional house calls, which had mainly catered to wealthy clients. He says he is passionate about making healthcare more affordable, transparent and approachable, and a nurse booked by app at a lower price than the classic house call put that into practice.

Scaling Sameday Health's consumer network

Under Huettenbach as CEO, the consumer model proved scalable in terms of footprint. Fifty-five US sites were open by April 2022, including 16 within Los Angeles County, staffed by a workforce of over 1,000 that the company itself put at 1,200. Huettenbach later described the staffing push as "1,000 employees in 100 days".

Serving the public directly meant that customers arrived throughout the day, often at short notice, and each one expected a personal result. Walk-ins and online reservations had to run side by side across the network.

Phase three: a different leadership

The leadership question was decided in early 2023: Huettenbach and his team chose physician leadership as the route to broader medical services. He stepped back that year and turned to investing and infrastructure.

The thread to infrastructure

Today Huettenbach is a co-founder and partner at Terranum, a Dubai-based developer of renewable-powered data center campuses, including a planned 100 MW, fully off-grid campus in Prieska, South Africa. He argues that the testing network's combination of many physical sites, official approvals and near-zero downtime prepared him for that work. He also invests as an angel in founder-led companies.

Why the origin story matters

The move from Quantgene's corporate testing unit to Sameday Health shows how a corporate testing service was followed by one for the general public. It also shows that serving consumers at scale brings a different set of demands around access, scheduling and the delivery of results. For anyone researching Felix Huettenbach and COVID-19, the Quantgene chapter explains where Sameday Health came from. He shares his thoughts on founders and capital on LinkedIn and has a profile on Medium.