In April, Google started sending at-home Covid-19 tests to its U.S. employees from a little-known start-up in San Diego called Cue Health.

Most of Cue Health’s business up to that point had come from a deal with the U.S. Department of Defense to provide rapid tests to the federal government. Google became immediately the largest private sector client of a health-tech company.

Cue Health used this relationship to build a compelling story for investors in the public markets. On Friday, the company debuted on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol “HLTH,” and the stock climbed 25% to $20 at the close. Cue Health is valued at $2.9 billion.

Cue Health was founded in 2010 with a small amount of revenue. The company spent most of its time in research mode, as a diagnostic test provider.

When the world’s worst pandemic hit, 2020 was a turning point in its history, instant test access became essential. The company was granted its first Emergency Use Authorization by the Food and Drug Administration in June 2020 for Covid-19 testing.

Cue Health has a kit which includes a reader, cartridge and wand. The user uses the wand to clean their nasal passages. After completing the procedure, the reader will send the results to the smartphone app. This takes about twenty minutes. The results can be processed at home without the need to go to a laboratory.

In July 2020, a month after the emergency authorization, the National Basketball Association began using Cue Health tests for its “NBA bubble” in Orlando, where games were restarting without fans. Three months after that, the company signed a $480.9 million deal with the DoD, to “meet the unprecedented demand for rapid and accurate molecular diagnostic testing,” according to the prospectus.

The company is still operating under emergency use authorization as the products have not been fully FDA cleared or approved.

Cue Health CEO Ayub Khantak stated that they had worked hard throughout the pandemic. He spoke to CNBC after Friday’s IPO. It was a difficult challenge for the team to show great resolve in scaling up during the pandemic.

Khattak, along with Clint Sever (product chief), founded the company under the original name Ruubix. Prior to last year they had been mainly focused on research & development.

The latest boon to the business came from Google, a deal that wasn’t announced publicly and was first disclosed in one sentence in Cue Health’s IPO prospectus earlier this month.

According to the filing, “In April 2021 the Company and Google LLC signed an agreement to supply Cue Health Readers as well as Cue COVID-19 test kits to Google’s U.S. employees until year end.”

Cue reported that the revenue for the first half of 2018 was $201.9 million. This is an increase from the $5 million recorded in the previous year. Around 84% of the company’s revenue was generated by sales to public sector customers. Cue Health reported that $28.9m of the $34.8 million revenue was from “single enterprise customers”.

Khattak refused to identify the customer but sources familiar with the situation confirmed that it was Google. Because the information is confidential, they asked that their identities not be revealed.

Google has not responded to our requests for comment.

Cue Health was forced to expand to meet its growing needs. In 2020, the company employed less than 100 people and has now grown to 1,250. In April, Glenn Wada, a senior vice president at Salesforce, was named chief commercial officer. Khattak explained that Cue Health was able, despite the fierce competition for tech talent because it is solving a global problem. 

Cue Health claims that it is working to develop a variety of diagnostic tests using saliva, urine, blood, and nasal samples. These diagnostic tests can be used to determine risk for chronic diseases such as heart disease, respiratory health, and sexual health.

Khattak stated that the company plans to offer direct-to-consumer online care as well as testing for common ailments like strep.

Google employees can order more test strips online through Cue Health’s company portal. Without the availability of in-office perks like free food or other amenities, the company has tried other ways to appeal to employees, offering resources for mental and physical health.

Google initially planned that employees would return to the office by September. But, this date was moved to January 10, 2022.

Khattak said the Google partnership began because his company was using the Google Cloud Platform, which competes with Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Cue Health reached out to Google when they realized their workforce was in need of the same kind of product Khattak and his team were developing.

Khattak stated that “it kind of came together at that point.” We were trying to meet the demands of our customers and were scaling up, so outreach was not something we did. Given the strong connection between us, we selected them over us.

Their collaboration goes further.

According to the prospectus, Cue entered into a partnership with Google Cloud in August this year. This partnership aims to create real-time Covid-19 variant tracking and sequencing.

The filing states that they are working together to build an “advanced respir biothreat detection platform that spans the Company’s at home diagnostic testing and full real-time virus sequencing, as well as predictive analytics and predictive capability through Google Cloud powered solutions.”

Cue’s public debut comes as Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of defunct blood-testing company Theranos, is on criminal trial for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She has pleaded guilty.

Khattak stated that Theranos is a topic of conversation due to the coincidence between the events.

Khattak stated that having such a large company in the backyard is a challenge. “But, we are in the fortunate position that we have a product that’s widely used, There’s no black box that you can’t understand what’s going on.”

Cue Health has also been thoroughly validated by health validations and has had independent clinical trials from Mayo Clinic.

Khattak expressed his excitement at passing through many of the hurdles.

WATCH: Cue Health CEO on FDA emergency authorization for Covid at-home tests