This new $100M fund plans to focus on startups accelerating the science around longevity – TechCrunch

Longevity-focused startups have been proliferating in recent times as we turn out to be extra targeted on our well being. Nonetheless, it’s not nearly apps to get you within the fitness center. Longevity startups can vary from biotech-oriented illness prevention, even to organ regeneration. The Getting old Analytics Company estimates that international investments in longevity-focused startups hit greater than $40bn in 2021, and the market may develop to $600bn by 2025, in keeping with Financial institution of America.

Now traders like Apollo Well being are elevating giant sums – comparable to their $180m fund in November, whereas Maximon, Swiss longevity firm builder, raised a €96m fund, to call simply two in Europe.

Now, popping out of the US, is a brand new fund to hitch the fray.

New York-based Life Extension Ventures is a brand new $100 million fund saying it should give attention to “longevity for individuals and planet”. In follow that can imply backing founders who’re accelerating the science round longevity.

That features areas comparable to individuals, animals, agriculture, meals, power, and transportation, in addition to AI, direct-to-consumer, Web3, infrastructure-as-a-service, platforms, and marketplaces.

Fortunately, the fund’s founders will know what they’re speaking about because the group has a number of science PhDs, profitable startups and Angel investing below their belts.

Life Extension’s LPs embody founders and traders from different VCs, unicorn founders, and enormous establishments.

The group contains Dr. Inaki Berenguer, the co-founder of Life Extension, who studied at MIT and Columbia, earlier than founding Pixable (acquired by Singtel) and CoverWallet (acquired by Aon in 2020).

Co-founder Dr. Amol Sarva studied cognitive science at Stanford and Columbia, and taught entrepreneurship at Columbia. He’s additionally gave WeWork a run for its cash with versatile workplace unicorn Knotel, and in addition began Peek (acquired by SoftBank.)

The pair have beforehand made angel investments in startups comparable to Galatea Bio, a DNA databank for genomic discovery; DeepCell the pc imaginative and prescient firm that makes use of AI to create a database of cell morphology, which has raised $100mm; and Particle Well being, which raised $40mm.

Over a name Sarva instructed me: “There was a clear Tech 1.0, a clear Tech 2.0, and one thing comparable is occurring within the Biotech universe now. Software program has now come to intersect with science in a brand new and totally different method and it makes the chance extra like tech.”

Berenguer added: “We’re going to give attention to the software program and data-driven corporations on this class. Many of the entrepreneurs that we’re going to again aren’t the standard biologist in a lab doing experiments. They’ll simulate experiments, they’ll analyze that knowledge. They’re going to, for example, commercialize utilizing API’s inside marketplaces. So it’s similar to what occurred with the web 20 years in the past.”

Sarva went on: “The way forward for humanity relies upon definitely on what we do for individuals, but additionally for the planet we stay on. It’s and it’s the identical. It’s the identical applied sciences and science. That’s having an influence. It’s biology and chemistry. It’s having an influence on individuals on agriculture, meals, even power manufacturing. This innovative science is de facto the important thing to all of it. And so we determined, let’s go discover the place science and software program intersect. That’s going to have a huge effect.”

Headquartered in New York, the fund can even have group members in Madrid, London and San Francisco.