Investor Profile: Longevity Fund — Thesis, Cheque Size & How to Apply

The Longevity Fund, based in San Francisco, was the first venture fund built specifically around human longevity, and learning how to get funding from The Longevity Fund starts with understanding that unusual focus. Founded by Laura Deming, it backs scientists and founders who treat ageing itself as a tractable medical problem, not as an inevitable decline. Its goal is more healthy years, achieved through medicines that reach patients, rather than through general wellness claims.

Investment thesis

The thesis is narrow and deeply scientific. The fund looks for plausible biological mechanisms, credible paths to clinical testing, and founders who can build a drug company around them. It argues that longevity is technically possible, economically viable, and desirable, and it rejects a fixed limit on healthy life. Diligence is mechanism first and hype last.

Sectors and stages

The fund focuses on longevity biotechnology and related health technology, especially therapies for age related disease. Its early portfolio also touched genome editing, metabolic disease, and senolytic approaches that target senescent cells. It is not a generalist health fund: a company needs a clear link to ageing biology or to extending healthy lifespan.

Fund size and cheque size

Public reporting gives a clear picture of the early funds. The first fund closed in 2013 after raising $4 million, and the second fund raised $22 million in 2017, with plans then to back eight to ten early stage companies. Later reporting put total assets under management at $37 million across three funds. A current, standard cheque size is not publicly disclosed in the materials reviewed.

Notable portfolio

Notable early investments include Unity Biotechnology, which developed senolytic drugs targeting diseases of ageing, and Precision BioSciences, known for genome editing work. The portfolio also included Metacrine, focused on metabolic disease, and Navitor Pharmaceuticals. Later longevity work connected to the team includes Loyal, which develops medicines intended to extend healthy lifespan in dogs, and Rubedo Life Sciences, which targets senescent cells.

Partners and team

The firm is closely identified with founder Laura Deming, who began ageing research as a teenager, worked in the laboratory of Cynthia Kenyon, entered MIT at 14, and left on a Thiel Fellowship to build the fund. Later, Deming co-founded age1 with Alex Colville, reflecting a continued focus on early stage longevity companies. Founders should expect a technically demanding conversation.

Programs and perks

In 2018 the team started an accelerator to test whether founder led longevity companies could build the field's major breakthroughs. That experiment became the basis for the later age1 approach to early stage longevity biotech and venture incubation. No separate, currently open accelerator programme with published terms was verified, so direct investment is the main route.

How to apply for funding

There is no verified open application portal with published deadlines. The practical route is a warm introduction through the longevity and biotech research community, supported by a concise scientific case: the mechanism, the evidence so far, and the clinical path. Contact should begin through the firm's official website, longevity.vc, and founders should expect deep scientific diligence.