Eric Lefkofsky's startup Tempus just landed a large round of funding to continue its fight against cancer.
Tempus announced Monday that it has raised $70 million from New Enterprise Associates and Revolution Growth. It's the first announced round of funding for Tempus, though the company says it has now raised a total of $130 million in outside capital.
Tempus is now reportedly valued at $700 million.
Lefkofsky founded Tempus two years ago with his business partner Brad Keywell. Tempus takes a data-driven approach to cancer treatment by using machine learning and genomic sequencing to better understand a patient’s tumor, and tailoring a treatment plan best suited to combat it. The startup is building a molecular clinical library of patient information and an operating system to make the information useful for physicians. The centralized database allows physicians to learn from cancer patients that came before, find people that have similar molecular and clinical profiles as their current patients, and find treatment options that are more likely to be effective.
Tempus has partnered with cancer-fighting institutions like the Mayo Clinic, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Michigan, who send their patients to Tempus to get sequenced. Tempus then pairs the patient’s molecular and clinical information, and issues a report back the physicians and gives them access to the operating system.
Lefkofsky's motivation for Tempus is personal; his wife Liz was diagnosed with breast cancer. During that process Lefkofsky wondered how doctors didn’t have access to more data to help them make decisions.
“I was amazed that we were giving better technology to truck drivers [through Echo Global Logistics, one of Lefkofsky’s other companies] than we were giving doctors making life and death decisions,” Lefkofsky told Chicago Inno back in June.
"We are thrilled to have led an investment in Tempus,” NEA’s Peter Barris said in a statement. “Given NEA's long and successful history investing in the intersection of technology and life science, we felt like the perfect strategic partner given Tempus's mission to help doctors personalize care by collecting and analyzing large volumes of data."
