Near the dawn of the 20th century, human life expectancy began to jump significantly thanks to new scientific insights into matters like handwashing, vaccines, and food safety. In recent decades, though, expected life spans have plateaued or even declined. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong believes this situation can be reversed, and says a health startup he cofounded is making faster than expected progress repairing cells in order to create longer and better lives.
On Tuesday, that startup—NewLimit—raised a $130 million Series B round led by venture capital giant Kleiner Perkins with contributions from new and existing investors including Khosla Ventures and Founders Fund.
In an interview with Fortune, Armstrong explained that NewLimit’s research is based on a relatively new scientific field known as epigenetic reprogramming that is able to manipulate cells in order to restore them to a younger or healthier state. These efforts center on turning on or off traits that are preexisting in various cells, and Armstrong says the startup has already notched some notable successes.
In particular, he cited advances by NewLimit in restoring cells connected to the liver and the body’s immune system. The next phase, Armstrong says, will be to identify a dozen or so additional areas where the startup’s research looks especially promising, and then pouring major funding into one or two of those.
“The moonshot for this company would be a drug to restore dozens of cell types,” adding that he views this emerging branch of epigenetics as a trillion-dollar opportunity.
Armstrong also explained that artificial intelligence and a technique called single-cell sequencing have played a critical role in helping NewLimit achieve rapid advances in its research. In particular, he says, these tools have allowed the startup to carry out a large number of test screenings for pennies a test.
Based on its current rate of research, NewLimit plans to begin testing treatments on nonhuman primates in the next year or two, and then seek approval to begin human testing around 2028.
“Pushing the boundaries of human life span and health span is an incredibly ambitious goal and has the potential to improve the lives of everyone on the planet. By pairing scaled genomics with frontier AI, NewLimit is accelerating advancements at a pace that the field has not seen before,” said Ilya Fushman, a partner at Kleiner Perkins, in a statement.
Longer human life spans?
The idea of using technology to reverse aging and extend life spans has gained popularity with a large segment of Silicon Valley. Other firms backing the Series B for NewLimit, which Armstrong launched after selling 2% of his Coinbase holdings, alongside geneticists Blake Byers and Jacob Kimmel, include Human Capital and Dimension Capital. The round also attracted investments from prominent angels including Elad Gil, Garry Tan, John and Patrick Collison, Joshua Kushner, Joe Lonsdale, and Fred Ehrsam.
If startups like NewLimit succeed in reversing harmful aging processes in certain key cells, the upshot could be a large number of people no longer succumbing to conditions that lead to chronic diseases or early mortality, and to longer and better quality of life overall.
The prospect of the world’s population living longer than in the past is fraught, of course. Such a development would raise big questions about how societies would pay for their citizens to live longer, but also about how to create a political and social order to support longer life spans. Armstrong acknowledges these considerations will become more pressing if NewLimit succeeds as he hopes, but that the questions are bigger than what the startup can address.
For now, Armstrong says, NewLimit is focused on the possibility of helping build the health and medical infrastructure to extend human lives.
“In the last 50 years, longevity has flatlined,” he notes. “We doubled it once before, why can’t we double it once again?”
