Founder Holmes raised $700 million from investors but never hired accountants to produce audited financial information Theranos and founder Elizabeth Holmes raised $700 million from mostly wealthy investors without ever having to provide financial statements audited by an independent public accounting firm. That’s what the Securities and Exchange Commission complaint against former Theranos president Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani suggests — and what a representative of one group of investors confirmed to MarketWatch. On March 14, Holmes and Theranos, the blood-testing startup that was once valued by investors at $9 billion, settled what the SEC characterized as “massive” fraud charges.