--- title: This Startup Founder Just Went From Billionaire to Broke description: Forbes magazine said Theranos wasn't worth the $9 billion it had been valued at one point, depleting founder Elizabeth Holmes' share. authors: - name: Martha C. White role: Writer url: https://money.com/author/martha-c-white/ education: BA, English, Princeton University at_money_since: 2015 articles: 350 covers: - Business - Banking - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Debt - Economy and Politics - Education - Federal Reserve Rate Cuts - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology published: '2016-06-01T16:26:21.000Z' modified: '2016-06-01T16:26:21.000Z' section: Business tags: - Elizabeth Holmes - forbes rankings - Net Worth - pubdesk - theranos word_count: 208 canonical: https://money.com/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-broke/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![elizabeth holmes broke](https://img.money.com/2016/06/elizabeth-holmes-broke.jpeg) Elizabeth Holmes, who was said to have a net worth of $4.5 billion just a year ago, is now as broke as the rest of us, according to a new tally of her wealth by [*Forbes*](http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2016/06/01/from-4-5-billion-to-nothing-forbes-revises-estimated-net-worth-of-theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes) magazine. The publication, which had named Holmes one of the country’s wealthiest young entrepreneurs and America's richest self-made woman just a year ago, rescinded its ranking on Wednesday. "Our estimate of Holmes’ wealth is based entirely on her 50% stake in Theranos," the magazine said. The privately held blood-testing startup Holmes founded had been valued at $9 billion after its last round of investor funding. Since then, serious questions have emerged about the reliability of its proprietary blood-testing equipment, and the company was fielding questions from federal regulators as well as a criminal [investigation](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-18/theranos-is-under-investigation-by-sec-u-s-attorney-s-office) to determine if Holmes and the company's leadership misled investors. *Forbes* said the other factor in its revaluation of Holmes' wealth was based on a new estimate of her company's revenue at only $100 million. Theranos, which Holmes founded in 2003 after [dropping out](http://fortune.com/2015/12/28/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-ambition/) of Stanford, entered the market with a bang, promising to revolutionize diagnostic testing with new machines that required only a drop of blood from a pinprick rather than vials drawn by a laboratory technician. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-broke/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Business", "item": "https://money.com/business/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Entrepreneurship", "item": "https://money.com/entrepreneurship/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "This Startup Founder Just Went From Billionaire to Broke" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-broke/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-broke/", "name": "This Startup Founder Just Went From Billionaire to Broke", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-06-01T16:26:21.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-broke/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-broke/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2016-06-01T16:26:21.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "This Startup Founder Just Went From Billionaire to Broke", "articleSection": "Business", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/06/elizabeth-holmes-broke.jpeg", "width": 4000, "height": 2670, "caption": "elizabeth holmes broke" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Martha C. 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