Sameday Health Timeline: Felix Huettenbach's Role From Venice to 55 Sites
Felix Huettenbach, a German-born founder, investor, adventurer and YouTuber based in Dubai, co-founded Sameday Health in September 2020 and, as its CEO, led it from a single COVID-19 testing site in Venice, Los Angeles, to 55 locations across the United States by April 2022. This timeline sets out the main stages of that period and what his role was at each point.
The short version
Sameday Health offered COVID-19 PCR and rapid tests at walk-in sites, with online booking and digital results. It began in Venice in September 2020, reached 55 locations and more than 1,000 employees by April 2022 (the company cited 1,200). Along the way it added vaccination, house calls and virtual urgent care, and in early 2023 it moved to physician-led management, when Huettenbach stepped back.
Before 2020: the groundwork
2012 to 2018: education
Huettenbach studied Technology and Management at the Technical University of Munich from 2012 to 2016, spent a term at UC Berkeley in 2015, and was an International Scholar in an entrepreneurial studies graduate program at MIT in 2017 and 2018.
2016 to 2020: first roles
Between 2016 and 2017 he sat on the Munich investment team of Aurelius Equity Opportunities. W8X, his fitness-technology venture, followed in 2017, and from 2018 to 2020 UMass Boston hosted him as Guest Lecturer and Global Entrepreneur in Residence. He also became Chief of Staff at Quantgene, a company applying machine learning to early cancer detection from standard blood samples.
2020: COVID-19 changes the agenda
Early pandemic: a corporate testing unit
Role: unit builder inside Quantgene. When COVID-19 arrived, Huettenbach set up a unit at Quantgene that offered testing to companies.
September 2020: Venice opens
Role: co-founder and CEO. Seeing that the general public also needed fast testing, he co-founded Sameday Health, which first traded as Sameday Testing, with one site in Venice, Los Angeles. The format combined walk-in access, online appointment booking and digital delivery of results, for both PCR and rapid tests.
16 December 2020: a multi-state plan
Role: CEO announcing the first wave. Less than three months after Venice, Sameday Health under Huettenbach said it would have 30 new testing facilities in 11 states by year-end. Five were flagships in Westfield centers: Westfield Annapolis and Westfield Wheaton in Maryland, Westfield Montgomery in Bethesda, Westfield Old Orchard in Skokie, Illinois, and The Village at Westfield Topanga in Woodland Hills, California.
2021: expansion
Role: CEO of a growing network. The months that followed were defined by new openings. Each opening needed trained staff, supplies and reliable reporting of results.
February 2021: Tysons Corner drive-thru
A drive-thru location opened outside Tysons Corner Center in Virginia, developed with mall owner Macerich, and became the company's 11th site around Washington, D.C., alongside Georgetown, Alexandria, Arlington and Sterling.
4 March 2021: a new brand and the first vaccines
With Huettenbach as CEO, Sameday Health became the parent brand. Vaccinations began at a drive-through site at Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, and an at-home Concierge Service launched. The company reported more than 50 locations in 15 states at that moment.
30 November 2021: House Calls
Through its app, the company introduced House Calls, with nurses bringing tests, STD screening, IV drip therapy and wellness services to homes, hotels and offices. By the company's count, more than 1.5 million tests and over 50,000 vaccines had been administered by then. House Calls was meant to cost less than the traditional house call, which had mainly served wealthy clients, and that matches what Huettenbach says drives him: making healthcare more affordable, transparent and approachable.
April 2022: Sameday Health's 55-location network
The footprint
By April 2022, Huettenbach was running a Sameday Health network of 55 locations nationwide, including 16 in Los Angeles County, with more than 1,000 employees. The company gave its headcount as 1,200, and Huettenbach later described the hiring phase as "1,000 employees in 100 days".
What 55 sites meant in practice
Role: CEO running a national operation. At that size, the core of the Venice format, with PCR and rapid tests on site, appointments taken online and results delivered digitally, had been rolled out to many locations, while other formats such as the Tysons drive-thru and the Staples Center vaccination site ran alongside it.
2022: virtual urgent care
Online consultations for cold and flu care and travel medicine were added in select states, and partner pharmacy Capsule delivered prescribed medication on the same day.
2023: a new kind of leadership
Role: outgoing CEO. In early 2023, Huettenbach and the management team concluded that a physician should lead the company in order to broaden its medical services. He stepped back during that year.
After Sameday Health
Huettenbach shifted to investing and infrastructure. He is a co-founder and partner at Terranum, a Dubai-registered company (Terranum Capital FZCO) developing data center campuses powered by renewable energy. In March 2026 he visited Prieska in South Africa's Northern Cape with Terranum's Victor Decalf and the Prieska Power Reserve team to discuss preliminary approval for a planned 100 MW off-grid campus with the mayor and senior officials.
He links the two chapters directly. In his view, building a multi-site network that depends on approvals and has near-zero tolerance for downtime is close to what data center development demands. Alongside Terranum, he backs founder-led companies as an angel investor.
Why the timeline matters
Read in sequence, the dates show how compressed the Sameday Health story was. One site in Venice in September 2020 had become a network of 55 locations by April 2022, and in early 2023 the CEO handed leadership to a physician. For those studying how COVID-19 testing was built in the United States, the case of Felix Huettenbach and Sameday Health offers a clear record of speed, scale and a deliberate leadership handover. He posts about his current work and investments on LinkedIn.
