A new venture capital firm, built on the foundation of The Longevity Fund, will help advance its mission funding the next generation of companies focused on extending healthy lifespan.
Venture capital firm, Age1, launched this month with a view to helping fund founder-led longevity biotech companies advancing new therapeutics, tools, and technologies targeting ageing and age-related disease.
Built on the foundation of The Longevity Fund, Age1 sees the expansion of a decade of expertise to create one of the world’s biggest markets for global health.
Its specialised team helped pioneer the first longevity-focused venture capital fund in 2011 and since backed multiple IPOs and acquisitions, having funded leading companies including Loyal, Gordian Biotechnology, Fauna Bio, Spring Discovery, Arda Therapeutics, Rubedo Life Sciences, Conception, and Bexorg.
Age 1 will focus on founders and companies at the earliest stages of first-money in, pre-seed, and seed funding, as well as continuing to support companies through later rounds. The firm held an initial closing for $35 million to invest in companies with the highest potential to shift the current paradigm of sick care to health preservation and extension.
The firm is co-founded by Laura Deming, founder of The Longevity Fund, and Alex Colville, PhD, a previous biotech investment manager at prestigious family offices.
Dr Colville previously established the biotech investment arm of Starbloom Capital and the philanthropic work of the Amaranth Foundation to advance the field of the biology of ageing where he managed more than $100 million in investments and philanthropy.
He will lead Age1 as the firm’s General Partner, creating the only current longevity biotech fund managed by a PhD who studied the biology of ageing.
“What started out as Laura’s recognition of a huge gap in the biotech industry of a lack of funding supporting longevity biotech has grown into an unprecedented growth in the amount of longevity biotech companies that promises to change the way people age,” said Dr Colville.
“The Longevity Fund put longevity biotech on the map. We feel strongly that a next-generation fund with more founder resources is required to accelerate the longevity paradigm shift we are on the precipice of. age1 will back ambitious and pragmatic founders building companies to give people the agency to choose how long they live, in good health.”
A critical point in time
A portfolio company from The Longevity Fund, made history in March 2023, when Loyal was the first company to receive protocol concurrence from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a clinical study with the endpoint of healthspan and lifespan.
The study moves beyond only proving efficacy against a single disease and intends to show that a drug extends healthspan and lifespan in dogs. The longevity biotech industry is on the brink of a similar regulatory milestone in human clinical trials.
Ms Deming commented: “Age1 is the next chapter in The Longevity Fund’s mission and the inflection point for the field. We’re motivated by the idea that age1 will be the group to make the seemingly impossible possible–extending healthy lifespan.”
