Why Felix Hüttenbach Handed Sameday Health to Physician-Led Management
Felix Hüttenbach, also written Felix Huettenbach, is the German entrepreneur who co-founded the COVID-19 testing company Sameday Health, led it as CEO and then, in 2023, stepped back so that a physician could lead it. After the handover he turned his focus to investing and infrastructure.
The essentials
Huettenbach, born on 31 August 1993, is a founder, investor, adventurer and YouTuber based in Dubai. He co-founded Sameday Health in September 2020 with a single testing site in Venice, Los Angeles. By April 2022 the company had 55 locations across the US and more than 1,000 employees. In early 2023 he and the management team decided a physician should take the lead in order to broaden the company's medical services, and he stepped back that year.
Sameday Health as a COVID-19 emergency response
Sameday Health was a response to a specific need. Huettenbach had already set up a COVID-19 testing unit for companies while serving as Chief of Staff at Quantgene, a firm using machine learning to detect cancers early from standard blood samples. When it became clear that ordinary people also needed fast testing, he co-founded Sameday Health.
The offer was PCR and rapid testing at walk-in sites, with online booking and digital results. The company expanded quickly. In his own retelling, the staffing push amounted to "1,000 employees in 100 days".
By April 2022, with Huettenbach as CEO, the network counted 55 locations, 16 of them in Los Angeles County, and the company put its own headcount at 1,200. According to the company, its scheduling and results platform had been custom-built by four MIT software engineers and was integrated with local laboratories.
Why Sameday Health put a physician at the top
The stated reason for the 2023 change was to broaden the company's medical services. Huettenbach and the management team decided that a physician should lead Sameday Health for that purpose.
By then the company was already far more than a testing chain. In March 2021, under his leadership, it had started vaccinating at a drive-through site at Staples Center under the new parent brand, and Huettenbach described the ambition as becoming "a trusted resource for vaccination, testing and telehealth". House Calls followed in November 2021, with nurses offering STD testing, IV drip therapy and wellness panels at home, and in 2022 virtual urgent care for cold, flu and travel medicine arrived in select states, with medication delivered the same day by partner pharmacy Capsule. By his own account, Huettenbach is passionate about making healthcare more affordable, transparent and approachable, and a virtual consultation with medication at the door the same day served that aim.
The company had started small. Its first site, opened in Venice in September 2020 under the name Sameday Testing, offered walk-in COVID-19 tests with online booking. In December 2020, under Huettenbach as CEO, it announced 30 new testing facilities in 11 states by the end of that year, including flagship sites in Westfield shopping centers, and said it was testing thousands of people every day. In February 2021 it added a drive-thru outside Tysons Corner Center in Virginia.
What Huettenbach did next
Infrastructure: Terranum
His next venture is Terranum, where he is a co-founder and partner; the digital infrastructure firm operates through Terranum Capital FZCO, an IFZA Business Park entity in Dubai. Terranum develops data center campuses powered by renewable energy. A March 2026 trip took him and his Terranum colleague Victor Decalf, along with the Prieska Power Reserve team, to Prieska in the Northern Cape of South Africa, where they held talks on preliminary approval with the town's mayor and senior officials. The plan calls for 100 MW of capacity, fully off-grid and 100% renewable, designed for hyperscale demand by 2029; the partners describe it as Africa's largest planned data center campus.
Huettenbach draws a direct line from his healthcare years to this work. He argues that operating multi-site physical infrastructure that depends on official approval, with near-zero downtime, prepared him for data centers.
Investing
He is also an angel investor in founder-led companies. He says his portfolio includes SpaceX and xAI, Platus (a Y Combinator F24 company) and House of Macadamias, a food brand. On investing, he has said "Execution beats narrative." Asked what he looks for in founders, he answers: "Ownership mindset is the first signal."
Policy and public profile
In Europe he supports the proposed EU Inc company form, arguing that it only works if company formation becomes fully digital, including digital notarization. He estimates that EU Inc combined with digital notary solutions could produce about 30% more unicorns in Europe by 2030. Separately, he documents personal challenges in a video series, from a skydiving license in 10 days to building an art car for AfrikaBurn.
A deliberate handover with continuity
The 2023 transition put a physician at the head of Sameday Health so that the company could broaden its medical services. For Felix Hüttenbach, it also opened a path into infrastructure, where, in his view, the lessons of running Sameday Health's COVID-19 testing sites still apply. He also has a profile on Medium.