Radical Transparency: A True Reflection of Happenings at KovaDx Before Shutdown — Lessons for Black Founders

KovaDx was a startup I founded to provide point-of-care testing for people in low-income regions, starting with Africa and eventually the US. The startup closed its doors earlier this year. In this radically transparent piece, I am sharing my experiences as a Black immigrant founder and the lessons learned for the future. I have no interest in actively promoting this piece; anyone who reads this must likely be actively searching for the truth. This is for posterity.

Part I: Origin story — Rising from the ashes of a failed startup

KovaDx arose from the ashes of LoveRealm, a faith-based startup I founded after a traumatic life event as a medical student. I had poured my life’s savings into LoveRealm but ultimately realized there was no product-market fit and had to shut it down, leaving me homeless in the US. As an immigrant without co-founders, I was left feeling like an outsider. With KovaDx, I was determined to solve a meaningful problem that leveraged my knowledge and skills as a physician and bioengineer while building a trustworthy team to garner support from American investors. I settled on developing a point-of-care screening platform for sickle cell disease — a deeply personal choice. As a doctor in Africa, I witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of sickle cell on close friends and family. Being a carrier of the sickle cell trait myself, this disease has shaped my life, from dating to family planning. Yet in the US, sickle cell is considered a rare disease, receiving far less attention and resources than other conditions, especially in underserved communities like the one I come from. I was driven to change that, to bring sickle cell screening and care to the forefront through KovaDx. Despite the challenges of being an immigrant outsider, I was determined to make a difference in an area that had profoundly impacted my life.

Part II: Forming a team and raising funding

After LoveRealm, having a fully invested team was crucial. Though not deeply religious now, faith initially drew me to KovaDx’s first co-founder — a devoutly Christian Yale Computer Science PhD student I’ll call Co-founder 1. I ultimately convinced him that, at the time, solving real-world healthcare issues held more value to me than a faith-based platform. The early heavy lifting fell squarely on me. I invested my limited cash in attending events, connecting with Connecticut stakeholders, funding initial experiments and travel, and developing core concepts. After relentless applications, we finally gained entry to the prestigious ABCT incubator and a $25K VC grant.

Leveraging Co-founder 1’s Yale presence while I did the real work, we started winning university awards. Since I drove most of the work and concepts, it made sense during equity talks for me to have majority shares as CEO. We left a 10% option pool. Then, everything accelerated rapidly. Within months of starting up, the company I led attracted over $150K in funding with another $1 million option. This unfolded amid nationwide post-George Floyd outrage, with a rallying cry to support Black founders and anti-racism. In this context, co-founder 1 and I, deeply motivated by equity and community service principles, provided internship opportunities for two high school students. These young black women benefited from our scientific knowledge for free and we were proud of our success and contribution to the community. While juggling all this; the NSF accepted our pitch, with an imminent full proposal that could bring funding close to $500K. For my first real US company, this was mind-blowing progress. All that early founder sacrifice and bonding positioned us for incredible success. I was living the American dream. Through this, however, I had been homeless, eventually finding shelter in a family friend’s closet — a deep blessing, but a story for another day. This means that while the company progressed, I was hungry. I couldn’t afford even a burger and had to depend on the family I lived with just to get by. I asked Co-founder 1 that I get a stipend just to survive. He disagreed and wanted to preserve cash for the company. I understood his point, but I needed to survive. This was our first major disagreement. It was ultimately settled by our mentors but left me scarred. I got a single $3K bonus, which felt like a fortune then. This is what I survived on.

Building all this, I had also applied to and been accepted at UC Berkeley’s Bioengineering PhD program. This happened before the company took off, and I was exploring my options. I also realized that my degree from Africa did not seem valued in the US. As a Black immigrant, I saw it as an opportunity to add credibility to myself to attract more funding to the company. This turned out to be truer than I imagined. Within weeks and before setting foot on Berkeley’s campus, the university provided resources and another grant. It was an opportunity, but I was conflicted — would this slow the company? With the PhD, I would receive a stipend and be able to live. Ultimately, Co-founder 1 and I settled on bringing in a second co-founder to share the burden. I’ll call her Co-founder 2 going forward. The agreement was that we would pay them top salary from impending funds, as well as equity in the company. We were deeply motivated by diversity and equity principles to add someone competent in business who would also make our technical team more diverse; so imagine the excitement when we finally settled on Co-founder 2, a recent Yale MBA grad and a lawyer. We were upfront with her about the fact that we were both in PhDs and needed support. Within months of their joining, the NSF awarded the Phase I proposal I had begun, bringing total funding close to $500K. It was a team effort and a great success! We were eligible for another $2 million in total ($1M from NSF and $1M from our investor). Given all the prior work before Co-founder 2 joined, and the fact that we agreed that they’d have the highest pay, it made sense the equity split favored me as CEO, followed by Co-founder 1 as CTO and then Co-founder 2 as COO who recently joined.

Part III: Team Dynamics — Blurring the lines

Given that KovaDx initially formed from the ashes of a faith-based platform, coupled with the fact that all founders were religious, we began to bond around faith. We would meet and pray weekly. This deeply resonated with my devoutly Christian upbringing. For regular people, this might sound abnormal, but for the religious, it seemed very natural and unifying. In hindsight, this was my first major mistake. Our new dynamic meant we began seeing ourselves as a ‘family.’ This sounded nice in theory, but in practice, the structures for authority and professional boundaries became blurred. Our working relationship morphed into something more akin to a familial dynamic. It also led to an unusual level of trust, which muddied the lines between personal and professional relationships. What should have remained a straightforward business partnership took on quasi-spiritual overtones. Disagreements weren’t just professional debates but felt like personal betrayals of this manufactured ‘family.’ The shared faith that once united us became a lancet for guilt, obligation, and unhealthy enmeshment. It was a hard lesson that perhaps some compartmentalization between faith and business is necessary to maintain healthy teams and working relationships.

Part IV: Choosing money over values

Within weeks of Co-founder 2 joining, they sought to rebuild the company’s website without my input or permission as CEO. In hindsight, this red flag should have been handled firmly. The website’s redesign shifted our outlook from a tech company to a donor-funded NGO appearance. By not using my authority or addressing it, the tone was set for the rest of our strained relationship. This was partly due to my “servant leadership” philosophy drawn from my faith — I do not view leadership as lording over people but as serving them. In practice, I noticed from then on that I had to scream to be heard. My co-founders didn’t take me seriously.

The next major blunder came regarding our target market. Based on my experience as the son of an African healthcare entrepreneur who understood that market deeply, coupled with my regulatory knowledge, I was convinced focusing on Africa first would allow us to go to market faster while generating earlier revenue in the millions. This had already been validated by our investors and donors who poured money into the startup. Co-founder 2 disagreed. Within weeks of joining, they insisted via a Microsoft Excel sheet that Africa was too poor for our product — we needed to change markets. I believe that their Excel sheet was based on prejudiced assumptions and untrue; besides, I had witnessed millions made in African healthcare through my family. I was also deeply offended by how this viewpoint was communicated. Denigrating an entire group and calling them impoverished based on stereotypes is racist, plain and simple. I do not believe that Africa is poor in the slightest — it’s overexploited! Philosophy aside, my knowledge and decades of experience in that market, plus three generations of expertise, meant I understood how to build a profitable business there while serving my community. Dismissing all that under the guise of “poverty” was most unfortunate. Given we had invested months exploring that market, signing MOUs with facilities ready to work with our product, this was a major pivot. We had to forfeit pending investments contingent on an African focus and cancel existing MOUs. I had brought in personal med school connections and promised research collaborations. All of that was out of the window now. I insisted we focus on our original vision but was dismissed by both co-founders. This jeopardized my longstanding African connections, who thought I had deceived them — something I truly regret.

Part V: Full-blown microaggressions

Being forced to change markets snuffed out my motivation for the company. Still, I handled it with grace. From then on, though, nothing I said seemed to hit home. I had to scream just to be heard. We’d go to meetings and I’d hear Co-founder 2 tell investors we had no doctor on the team — deeply demoralizing and revalidating that my African credentials weren’t valued. Co-founder 1 didn’t intervene at any point to advocate for me or put an end to the abuse he witnessed. After the initial $500k I had led in bringing in as CEO, no new funding materialized. I kept insisting we use our progress to attract more investment and bring on better talent to serve the company’s needs; both co-founders, however, chanted, “We’re not ready.” How would we know when we were ready? I asked that we tell a better story and leverage our existing traction and connections to raise more development money. This was repeatedly ignored. We began running out of cash.

As we ran out of cash, Co-founder 2 faced personal difficulties. With the company unable to pay the promised salary, they needed housing assistance. Despite having space, Co-founder 1’s family thought housing them for free was unwise. With no one else willing to help, I stepped up — housing Co-founder 2, completely rent-free despite protests from my partner. This severely strained my relationship with my partner, but I rationalized it as something founders do. In hindsight, it was a terrible mistake. While fresh college grads crashing together makes for a cool “dorm room” founder myth, for those of us with partners and family goals, it meant cleaning up after another adult, lack of privacy during turbulent times, awkward bathroom encounters, and them disregarding how unlocked doors triggered my PTSD episodes. Yet I remained hopeful things would improve.

After all this, my energy flagged. I was losing steam as the company seemed to be dying. I also faced microaggressions in my PhD lab environment — a story for another day, but I ultimately had to find a new thesis lab. Balancing that stress with the company’s became impossible. Sleep issues and OCD flare-ups ensued. I may have missed a meeting or two. It seemed there was a problem with my leadership — they didn’t accept me. Through deep reflection and mentor conversations, I concluded the only difference separating me from them was my skin color. Since they wouldn’t heed me, I faced a Solomonic dilemma — hold on as the baby is torn apart or let go for its survival. Here, you can have her — take the baby and nurture her well. That’s what I did. And so after speaking with mentors, I decided to hand over the company to Co-founder 2. Around that time, my relationship with Co-founder 1 had drifted amid personal differences. Co-founder 2 fed into that distance, further igniting the differences between Co-founder 1 and I. This created a rift where I felt I could trust Co-founder 2 more, especially because they lived with me at that time. This made them appear as the natural choice to hand over my leadership position, and so willingly and wholeheartedly, I transferred my position to them with the hope that the company would be saved. I also insisted that our new leader be given the power to lead and make decisions. This was important to me because I believed by not allowing me to lead, our team had become indecisive.

Part VI: Financial and Equity Struggles

Throughout this process, Co-founder 1 decided to graduate with a master’s and leave the Yale PhD program for personal reasons. However, to properly frame this to investors, it was stated he left to serve the company full-time. It’s important to clarify the truth, as this later became a point of contention in equity distributions. Since we weren’t being paid properly, equity stakes became highly controversial. Soon, Co-founder 2, now effectively the CEO, was demanding more equity. After a meeting, we agreed to increase their shares, thinking we’d satisfy them, but weeks later, they demanded even more. I pushed back initially, however, after reasoning that it was important for Co-founder 2 to feel valued, we all agreed to their demands- but conditioned that this would be the final adjustment as the constant revisions were demoralizing. We all accepted, increased Co-founder 2’s piece of the pie, and thought the matter settled to move forward. At this point, I still maintained a single-digit higher percentage than my co-founders, owing to my earlier contributions. Our shares were, however, quite close, and the goal was to ensure everyone was motivated. While I empathized with them at this point, I also reasoned that if they had heeded me earlier, we wouldn’t have had such financial woes, and they’d have been better compensated per our original agreements. Regardless, we fought hard to raise money. Both co-founders now believed that we were finally ‘ready’ to raise money even though nothing had changed much on the product side. Unfortunately, market conditions had drastically altered. We also discovered at this time that our initial law firm had screwed us over big time. This was one of the main reasons why I pushed back on the equity revision. Our 83(b) was never filled and we had to fix this issue to be able to raise money. This dragged on for months and we all ended up forking thousands of dollars we didn’t have to pay for equity that ended up being worthless.

Part VII: Struggles with academic partners

Our company was formed in the post-Elizabeth Holmes era. Since we did blood testing, we chose to partner with a University down south rather than build our own tech stack. I reasoned that using an academic partner, transparency, and publications would neutralize negative blood-testing connotations. This made the company dependent on collaborating with this academic partner. Co-founder 2, now CEO, handled much of the academic, investor relationships, and other key connections. I admit this is crucial for a startup, but it was a position of trust meant to serve the company’s interests. However, I noticed that not all, but some of the academic partner university staff seemed to have an issue with me, though I couldn’t pinpoint why. Soon, Co-founder 2 came back demanding yet more equity — despite our prior agreement that there’d be no more adjustments. Their excuse was that the academic partner insisted that if Co-founder 2 didn’t own the majority stake, they would just license everything to them directly so they could start their own company. I would later find out that Co-founder 2 was actively doing this for their personal benefit to the detriment of everyone else. It appeared to be a hostile takeover shrouded in manipulation. I found this deeply troubling, as I had viewed them as family. I also disagreed that an external entity could dictate how we split our equity. We had agreed to previous demands, but as a student of history, I should have learned from Neville Chamberlain’s failed appeasement tactics. The continued demands and threats were very troubling. I also felt directly targeted by the University’s stance — a sense they felt I, as a Black man, didn’t deserve to own a piece of the company I had founded, funded, and built from the ground up before Co-founder 2’s arrival. I had brought this University into this, I had brought all the co-founders in. They were all there because of me, yet they failed to see that.

At this point, I had lost all steam. I decided to take a step back and allow both founders to do whatever they wanted. At a board meeting; I asked Co-founder 1 and Co-founder 2 to decide the new split. I informed them that I would not argue with them or fight with them. They could decide whatever they wanted. Even if they wanted 100% of the company, I would give it to them. After moving back and forth, they decided to swap my shares for Co-founder 2’s shares while drastically reducing mine. Prior to the revision, my shares were 36% pre-dilution. Co-founder 2 now wanted the exact same number I had. I would have personally preferred if they asked for 50% or more, but to ask for 36%, the exact number I had was a stab in the heart. It felt like Co-founder 2 just wanted to trade places with me. For someone that was supposed to be my ‘family,’ that was disheartening. My share was reduced to a number that would probably be less than 3% post-dilution. Co-founder 2 did this, all the while living comfortably under my roof rent-free. The reasoning for the dilution was that both co-founders were full-time, and I was part-time as a PhD student. This allocation discounted my earlier efforts in the founding days of the company. It also discounted the fact that I had, until recent troubling times, put in the same if not more hours than them while juggling my PhD. I was sure of this fact because I used Clockify to track all my hours from the inception of the company. In the early days, I had informed both co-founders to do the same and track their hours. This was ignored. The new share allocation also ignored the fact that Co-founder 1 only became ‘full-time’ for personal reasons and that their hours since leaving the PhD program hadn’t changed much from mine. It discounted the fact that both of them, at some point, got a stipend, no matter how small. I wasn’t against this, but I was not treated in the same manner and had to fight for a small bonus when I was with the company ‘full time.’ For me, this screamed that all my earlier efforts didn’t matter. That the research didn’t matter. That I was not valued. Co-founder 1 did nothing to stop the abuse that went on. He initially agreed with me that the situation was abusive; however, as time went on, he stayed neutral and didn’t want to take sides. As Desmond Tutu once said, ‘If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.’ I felt greatly betrayed because this happened while Co-founder 2 was living rent-free in my house, leaving me thousands of dollars in debt because my partner had, at the time, just lost their job. We wanted to downsize but couldn’t for the sake of Co-founder 2, as we didn’t want to leave them houseless. I had looked out for and cared for them as a family, but they betrayed me and by extension my partner.

Part VIII: Final Days

In the company’s final days, I witnessed Co-founder 2 lying to investors about the device being applicable to all diseases, with Co-founder 1 nodding in agreement. This showed a lack of scientific depth. This deeply troubled me because, throughout the process, the role of research; my role, was minimized within the company. Despite all of these moves, the company still struggled to gain funding. The final days were particularly very financially troubling. It must be stated that this was at the core of all the company’s problems. There was no money! I attribute this to the fact that we were targeting a rare disease that affects a typically low-resource community, but it must also be said that after pivoting our market, the product was lost. We did not have a product-market fit. Our last hope came from a firm wanting a small stake in the company. I loved this investor because one of them was from Senegal, and they had connections for follow-on funding. They were brought on board by Co-founder 2; however, despite this fact, both founders refused the deal, insisting instead on taking money from an inspired Black nurse because it meant giving up less equity. I felt deeply uncomfortable taking funds from a minority individual trying to serve their community, knowing the company’s perilous future. I voiced my discomfort but didn’t stress it strongly enough. I should have been more forceful in calling this out, but I feared my concerns would be dismissed anyway.

To attract more funding, I nudged both founders to instead take money from the VC firm that gave us our initial $25K grant. This firm would fund us with the caveat that we’d stay in Connecticut. I was in Berkeley at this time with Co-founder 2, and Co-founder 1 was in Seattle. We decided to take the plunge with the VC firm and see how it goes. We were in due diligence with them, but it dragged on interminably. Everything felt unsustainable. I tagged along, hoping the round would close. Despite all the mistreatment from both founders, I didn’t want to abandon them after bringing them into this. I hoped the company could fundraise, they’d be okay, and I could finally leave for my peace of mind. That never materialized. Ultimately, both co-founders decided to shut down the company. I happily agreed, thinking I could move on from the trauma with hard-learned lessons. Throughout it all, I witnessed a marginalization of my role as the original founder who brought everyone together, built the initial core scientific concepts, and staked my life’s work on this vision. Yet that founding vision was continually undermined and discounted by the very people I had empowered to share in its success.

Part IX: Continued abuse

For weeks after the company shut down, I suppressed my feelings. I finally broke down and began confronting my trauma in therapy. I met up with Co-founder 1 and called him out for condoning my abuse. We both apologized to each other, me for missing his wedding and him for not being an active bystander. I completely and wholeheartedly forgave him and co-founder 2, by extension, despite the abuse. I was ready to move on, so imagine the shock of my life when I was casually scrolling LinkedIn and saw Co-founder 2 on a smear campaign describing me with typical racial stereotypes. I decided not to say anything; after all, they say silence is golden, but as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie once said, “Sometimes, silence makes a lie begin to take on the shimmer of truth.”

I am not one to air dirty laundry in public, and when individuals without a shred of human decency publicly spread malicious lies and falsehoods in an attempt to discredit innocent people, the standard response is often to engage in a mudslinging match. However, while the urge to defend oneself is strong, stooping to their level by trading insults only lends credibility to their false narratives. Truth, as they say, is like a calabash; no matter how you try to submerge it under water, it floats. My actions and character will speak for themselves. Those who know me well understand the truth, and for others, I strive to maintain composure and take the high road, trusting that lies will unravel on their own over time. However, in this post-truth era where the internet never forgets, it is sometimes necessary to clarify false narratives. It has been my experience as a black immigrant in the US that a single mistake can become a stereotype. If I was late once to a meeting for legitimate reasons and apologized, I would be stereotyped as the Black guy who is always late. If I stood up for myself, I was the aggressive Black man hanging on to power, even when I gave everything I had, all of this while ignoring the fact that if I was doing this for power, I wouldn’t waste years of my life in a PhD to solve that very problem. How could someone not directly affected by a problem care more about it than the affected? Can you cry more than the bereaved? Let the sages answer.

Part X: Lessons for the future

1. Do not be neutral in cases of abuse; please stand up and speak up for the downtrodden and oppressed. It’s the right thing to do.
2. File your 83(b) early and avoid poor-quality law firms. The money they save you will not be worth it and will be costly in the long run.
3. Know your limits as a human. Combining a PhD and a startup, especially pre-qualifying exams, was very unwise on my part, not discounting the fact that a lot of resources came from Berkeley, including office space.
4. Little room for error — This might be quite unfortunate, but as a Black person in America, if you miss that one meeting, you will be tagged from thereon as the person who is always late. People seem to show Black founders in the US very little grace, especially when it comes to stereotypes. I see this as an advantage for the Black community though, as it will lead to a breed of very excellent individuals who will challenge existing narratives.
5. Do not blur personal and professional boundaries
6. Define clear structures of authority from the onset, with clear structures in place in terms of decision-making.
7. Do not delay the inevitable; hire slowly and fire fast.
8. Clearly stating equity prior to founding with sunset provisions if funding goals are not met is very important.
9. If you’re looking to serve underserved communities, I would bootstrap as much as possible. I would only raise money from investors if absolutely required and under conditions where the work would fail without outside funding. Traditional investors have a totally different profit-oriented mindset, and they, along with typical MBA graduates, will usually choose profits over human values.
10. Someone needs to figure out a sustainable way to fund research on conditions that affect low-income rare disease communities. I’m very interested in this area and will continue to explore it in the future.
11. Do not speak behind people’s backs. There’s no dignity in that.