LongeVC CEO and founder Garri Zmudze speaks about the firm’s mission to create an ageless future with its support for innovative longevity tech companies.
Investment firm, LongeVC has a portfolio of companies across the likes of consumer health, AI for drug discovery, biotech and gene therapy. Connecting them all is a shared mission to create an “ageless future”.
With the longevity and anti-ageing market expected to rise from $26.12 billion in 2022 to $44.92 billion by 2030, AgeTech World hears from LongeVC CEO and founding partner, Garri Zmudze about the investment landscape in this rapidly growing sector.
Zmudze first entered the biotech space while working in the banking industry in Switzerland. He became an early investor in Insilico Medicine, a leader in AI for drug discovery, after his friend and former classmate, Alex Zhavoronkov approached him.
It turned out to be a valuable investment for Zmudze but there was also a personal reason for turning his focus to biotech and longevity. Both his parents have suffered from age-related diseases. His father passed away from cancer while his mother has struggled with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s for the last 12 years.
Zmudze speaks about the misconceptions surrounding longevity, the latest trends that are piquing the interest of him and his team of investors and what he looks for in a company before investing.
AgeTech World: You have said that there is some misunderstanding among the public around what longevity is and how it differentiates itself from popular buzzwords like biohacking. Can you explain some of these misconceptions?
Garri Zmudze: As I spend a lot of time in Miami, Florida, I have visited most of the so-called longevity clinics around the state. What I discovered there is a wild west. And what I mean by that is they’re giving patients peptides, exosomes and stem cells for very high prices.
However, from my perspective, it is not evidence-based and it can be harmful and dangerous for patients. Maybe not right now, but in the longer term, there can be consequences.
I believe that longevity must be standardised and must be promoted to a broader audience and explained in simple terms why biohacking can be dangerous for you. Nothing is proven. There is no hard evidence.
But, we have early therapeutics and we have more evidence-based approaches that can adjust and ultimately prolong a healthy human lifespan.
LongeVC says is investing in an “ageless future”. What does this concept mean to you and what is needed to get there?
Longevity will never be a magic pill that will make us younger. We have to understand that it is a family of technologies and that’s what we’re pushing forward. That’s why one of our main focus is early diagnostics of age-related diseases.
I believe the whole system must be changed. When we talk about longevity, it’s not just therapeutics against age-related diseases or early-stage diagnostics, it’s a wider term. It includes new insurance plans – because of the Silver Tsunami – and new pension plans. There are a lot of [elements] that fit the topic of longevity.
We live longer and healthier, but pension plans and insurance plans cannot cover that. Nowadays, insurance plans in the US do not cover an expansive range of early-stage diagnostics at this stage. I believe that the whole paradigm must change for that.
What are some of the latest trends and opportunities in the longevity sector that you are particularly excited about?
The biggest trend that I see and support is public clinics that are opening in Singapore in the National University of Singapore. The [Centre for Healthy Longevity is led by Professor Andrea Maier.
There is also Sheba Longevity Clinic [in Tel Aviv] that is led by Professor Tzipi Strauss and Professor Evelyn Bischof and where I’m a part of the executive board.
I believe that these types of projects will have a huge impact on the whole industry because first of all, they are free public hospitals that will generate a lot of data for research. I think that’s huge because before, that was a privilege mostly for wealthy people.
I think that’s the biggest trend and I’m a big supporter of it. I hope that there will be more and more public clinics around the globe.
In terms of LongeVC’s portfolio, what are the common threads that run through the companies that you invest in?
All our portfolio companies are chosen in a way that fits our thesis. There are different pillars like early diagnostics, age-related therapeutics and different tech that enables those processes, including standardising longevity and AI for drug discovery.
I believe that the best indicator for the fund we have is that so far, for two years, we have had zero write-offs. Our portfolio is structured in a way that we have early diagnostics, therapeutics, AI for drug discovery and mental health applications.
Now, we are also focusing on ovarian ageing, fertility and reproduction. The main focus we will be having in the next 12 months is on mental health and female reproduction.
Where do fertility and reproductive health fit into longevity?
Ovarian ageing and reproductive health is an important part of longevity. A lot of women dedicate their lives to careers and they may want a child after 40, for example, when there are additional risks.
This is something we want to [do]. We want to prolong reproductive age. I think that that’s important.
We recently appointed a new advisor, Professor Yousin Suh, who is a professor at Columbia University in New York. We are getting additional competencies on board in this field and making some early-stage investments.
What do you look for in the companies you invest in?
We are not investing in something that slightly changes or slightly adjusts existing processes. We’re looking for innovations [and] breakthrough technologies.
We make our investment decisions based mostly on the team and the leadership because in the early stage, that is very important.
We also look for fundraising skills as it’s a very challenging environment nowadays.
We establish relationships with the tech transfer departments from the big universities. We’re getting access to the spin-offs from universities and other projects where our advisors are involved. These are the projects that we want to support and mostly they come from big universities.
These companies we invest in already have a team in place and they already have their IP protected. But mostly, it’s all about people. There are a lot of brilliant ideas that were not properly executed. At the early stage, that’s maybe the most important point.
Can you give a couple of examples of the innovative companies that LongeVC has invested in?
For example, we [support] a company called Haut.AI. This is a very interesting B2B solution that is moving into B2C. It is AI that analyses your skin and offers personalised cosmetics for your type of skin.
There’s a brilliant team that already established business relationships with big brands like she’s Zaheda, Unilever and Ulta Beauty in the US, one of the biggest retailers. This is the dream team you want to have in your portfolio and this is a good example of consumer application.
Freedom Biosciences is a new-generation mental health application that is a spin-off out of Yale University.
They created a type of ketamine which follows on from the drug [developed] by Johnson & Johnson called Spravato.
Freedom Biosciences mix it with other compounds that prolong the efficacy and also [cause] less addiction. They also significantly reduce the price from around $700 for Spravato to [around] $100. IT will be accessible to a broader audience of patients and ultimately will be covered by insurance.