Tempus AI is a precision-medicine technology company that applies artificial intelligence to multimodal healthcare data to improve clinical decision-making in oncology, cardiology, and rare diseases. Founded in 2015, the company built one of the largest clinical and molecular data libraries in U.S. healthcare, integrating genomics, imaging, pathology, and real-world clinical records. Tempus sells data-driven diagnostics to providers and AI-powered insights to life-science companies. The business sits at the intersection of diagnostics, data infrastructure, and drug development enablement. Its strategy is simple and brutal: own the data layer, monetize it twice, and let AI compound the advantage.
Most Recent Earnings Performance
In its most recent reported quarter in 2025, Tempus delivered revenue of approximately $165 million, representing year-over-year growth north of 30%, beating consensus expectations on the top line while narrowing operating losses versus analyst forecasts. Clinical testing volumes continued to grow at a double-digit rate, while data and services revenue expanded faster than diagnostics, reinforcing management’s long-term mix shift thesis. Gross margin improved sequentially due to higher utilization of in-house sequencing and software-driven workflows. Management reiterated full-year revenue growth guidance in the high-20% to low-30% range. The market reaction was cautiously positive, reflecting confidence in execution but continued scrutiny on path-to-profitability.
Founding and Early History
Tempus was founded in 2015 by Eric Lefkofsky, following his wife’s cancer diagnosis, which exposed how fragmented and under-utilized clinical data was in oncology. The founding thesis was that healthcare was data-rich but insight-poor, and AI could close that gap if the data infrastructure was built correctly. From inception, Tempus invested heavily in vertically integrated capabilities, including its own sequencing labs and data ingestion pipelines. This capital-intensive approach slowed early margins but created long-term defensibility. Chicago was chosen as headquarters to tap into medical institutions while avoiding Bay Area cost inflation.
Funding and Capital Formation
Prior to going public, Tempus raised over $1.3 billion in private capital from investors including NEA, Baillie Gifford, and Google. The company consistently raised at increasing valuations, reflecting confidence in its data moat and enterprise adoption. Unlike many AI-branded healthcare startups, Tempus deployed capital into physical lab infrastructure, not just software. This made the business harder to scale initially but significantly raised barriers to entry. The IPO provided balance-sheet flexibility rather than survival capital.
Product Portfolio and Platform
Tempus’ core offerings include next-generation sequencing diagnostics, AI-driven clinical decision support, and real-world data platforms for biopharma. The Tempus Lens and Tempus Next tools help oncologists match patients to therapies and trials using molecular and clinical signals. For life-science customers, Tempus provides de-identified longitudinal datasets used in drug discovery, trial design, and companion diagnostics. The company’s differentiation lies in fusing wet-lab data with AI models trained on outcomes, not just biomarkers. This makes the platform more predictive and commercially valuable.
Key Competitors and Industry Positioning
Tempus competes with a mix of diagnostics companies, healthcare data vendors, and AI-native startups. In diagnostics, it faces incumbents like Foundation Medicine and Guardant Health. In data and analytics, it overlaps with Flatiron Health and IQVIA. Unlike competitors that focus on a single modality, Tempus operates as a full-stack platform, which is both its strength and operational burden. The competitive edge comes from scale and integration, not pricing.
Market Opportunity and Industry Growth
Tempus operates in the precision-medicine and clinical data analytics markets, collectively estimated to exceed $150 billion globally by 2030. Precision oncology alone is projected to grow at a CAGR of roughly 10–12% through the end of the decade, driven by biomarker-driven therapies and personalized treatment protocols. AI adoption in clinical workflows remains early, with less than 20% penetration in most hospital systems. This creates a long runway for data-centric platforms that already meet regulatory and clinical standards. Tempus is positioned to benefit disproportionately as AI moves from experimental to operational in healthcare.
Long-Term Market Dynamics
By 2030, regulators, payers, and providers are expected to demand outcome-linked evidence for therapies, increasing the value of real-world data platforms. Biopharma R&D productivity pressures further push demand for external data and AI-assisted trial optimization. Tempus’ datasets become more valuable over time as longitudinal depth increases. This is a classic data flywheel business where early scale advantages compound. The risk is execution complexity rather than market demand.
Competitive Landscape Overview
Guardant Health focuses primarily on liquid biopsy diagnostics with strong clinical adoption but less emphasis on AI-driven longitudinal data. Foundation Medicine, owned by Roche, benefits from pharma integration but operates within a more closed ecosystem. Flatiron Health dominates oncology EHR-derived data but lacks Tempus’ molecular depth. Tempus’ advantage is breadth plus ownership, while competitors tend to specialize. The trade-off is higher operating costs.
Unique Differentiation
Tempus’ key differentiation is its vertically integrated, multimodal data platform trained on real patient outcomes at scale. Most competitors either own data without AI depth or offer AI without proprietary data. Tempus owns both. This allows the company to monetize the same dataset across diagnostics, clinical decision support, and biopharma services. It is not a software wrapper; it is infrastructure. That distinction matters when hype cycles fade.
Management Team Overview
Eric Lefkofsky serves as Founder and CEO, bringing capital markets experience and long-term vision rather than pure clinical background. Ryan Fukushima, as COO, oversees operational execution across labs and enterprise partnerships. The leadership team blends healthcare, data science, and large-scale operations expertise. This is a builder’s management team, not a sales-first one. Investors should expect disciplined but capital-intensive growth.
Five-Year Financial Performance
Over the past five years, Tempus has grown revenue at a compound annual rate exceeding 30%, scaling from sub-$200 million to a run-rate well above $600 million. Diagnostics revenue drove early growth, while data and services increasingly contribute higher-margin dollars. Gross margins have expanded steadily but remain below pure-software peers due to lab operations. Operating losses have narrowed as fixed infrastructure costs scale. The balance sheet remains solid post-IPO, with sufficient cash to fund expansion without near-term dilution.
Bull Case for the Stock
If Tempus successfully transitions its revenue mix toward higher-margin data and AI services, operating leverage could inflect meaningfully over the next three to five years. The company’s data moat strengthens with every patient added, creating increasing returns to scale. Strategic partnerships or acquisitions in biopharma could unlock additional monetization vectors.
Bear Case for the Stock
The business remains capital-intensive, and margin expansion may take longer than the market expects. Competition from large incumbents with bundled offerings could pressure pricing. Regulatory or reimbursement changes in molecular diagnostics could slow volume growth.
The stock is in a stage 4 bearish markdown on the weekly chart and in stage 1 consolidation (neutral) on the daily chart with a move higher to $80 where there is resistance most likely. The moving averages are flat so this indicates a loss of momentum, so it should move lower after $80 range.