Tim DraperFounder and Managing Partne, Draper Associate · I back the ideas that look crazy first

🗽 Can these New York startups handle the pressure and rise to the challenge?

15 Feb 2025 · 1 min

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1:17

MIT founders pitch a home kit that tests ticks for Lyme disease instead of testing patients. Investors question whether people will actually send in ticks, worry about the four-person team staying together, and debate whether an app and AI features are gimmicks or real value.

We are the first home tick testing kit for Lyme disease. Does it work? It works.
How long do you have to have the tick in you before it counts?
So that's based on a human test, not on— we're testing the tick, not the patient. So for example, this is my patient.
So we gotta find the tick and send it to you? God, you are smooth. But you started by talking about your dad and— My grandfather.
Your grandfather.
And then all of a sudden we're talking about satellites and rockets and why is one connected to the other. Better than all the other AI for medicine, general AI companies can provide me with a lot of good medical advice.
Can you walk us through this? What do you do? You have some— an app?
What is the particular problem that you're solving for a therapist? I mean, there's even companies that are now starting to verticalize their wallets and payment systems for very specific people. Why would they upload the money to your wallet?
So 4 MIT students, is that going to be a problem? Down the road when one of them just decides to bail, you know, and all that stuff happens that normally happens with entrepreneurs.