Laura Deming | |
|---|---|
 Deming speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2018 | |
| Born | 1994 (age 30–31) [1] |
| Nationality | New Zealander |
| Alma mater | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (dropped out) |
| Awards | Thiel Fellowship Forbes 30 Under 30 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Life extension |
| Institutions | The Longevity Fund |
| Academic advisors | Cynthia Kenyon |
Laura Deming (born 1994) is a venture capitalist whose work focuses on life extension, and using biological research to reduce or reverse the effects of aging.
Laura Deming is the daughter of John and Tabitha Deming; [2] she grew up in New Zealand. [3] Deming and her brother, Trey, were homeschooled; she says she taught herself "calculus and probability and statistics, and French literature and history". At age 8, Deming became interested in the biology of aging, [4] and at age 12 she joined the lab of Cynthia Kenyon at the University of California, San Francisco. [3] [5] Kenyon successfully increased the lifespan of the worm C. elegans by a factor of ten through genetic engineering.[ citation needed ] [6] Deming was accepted to MIT at age 14 and studied physics, [5] [7] but later dropped out to accept the $100,000 Thiel Fellowship and start a venture capital firm. [8] Deming was one of only two women in the 2011 initial class of Thiel Fellows. [9]
Deming is the founder of and partner at The Longevity Fund, a venture capital firm focused on aging and life extension. [3] [5] The firm raised $4 million in its first fund and $22 million for its second fund, in 2017. [7] [10] The Longevity Fund investments include Unity Biotechnology, which develops senolytic drugs targeting diseases of aging, Navitor Pharmaceuticals, and Metacrine.
In 2018, Deming launched the AGE1 accelerator, a four-month startup program aimed at supporting founders developing longevity-focused companies. [11] The program graduated its first cohort of six on October 10, 2018, including Fauna Bio, a startup using the biology of hibernation to aid in heart attack and stroke recovery. [12] [13] In August 2018, Deming also began advising the newly launched Pioneer, a fund designed to find talent and "lost Einsteins" around the world, for projects in longevity. [14]
In 2023, Deming joined forces with Alex Colville to launch age1, a next-generation venture capital fund building on the success of The Longevity Fund. [15] [16] With $55 million in funding, age1 is dedicated to advancing breakthroughs in longevity and aging science by supporting innovative early-stage companies. [17] Colville, the fund's co-founder, has been recognized for his leadership in driving innovation and advocating for regulatory reforms in aging-related drug development. [18]
Deming believes that science can be used to create biological immortality in humans, and has said that ending aging "is a lot closer than you might think". [19] She has been featured in "30 Under 30" by Forbes magazine, [20] and was one of the stars of "The Age of Ageing", a documentary by National Geographic television channel. [5] She also spoke at the 2012 Singularity Summit [21] and at the 2013 TEDMED conference. [22]
Peter Andreas Thiel is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist. A co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, he was the first outside investor in Facebook. As of July 2024, Thiel had an estimated net worth of US$11.2 billion and was ranked 212th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Peter H. Diamandis is an American engineer, physician, and entrepreneur. He is best known as the founder and chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, and the cofounder and executive chairman of Singularity University. He is also cofounder and former CEO of the Zero Gravity Corporation, cofounder and vice chairman of Space Adventures Ltd., founder and chairman of the Rocket Racing League, cofounder of the International Space University, cofounder of Planetary Resources, cofounder of Celularity, founder of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, and vice chairman and cofounder of Human Longevity, Inc.
Benchmark is a venture capital firm founded in 1995 by Bob Kagle, Bruce Dunlevie, Andy Rachleff, Kevin Harvey, and Val Vaden.
Founders Fund is an American venture capital fund formed in 2005 and based in San Francisco. The fund has roughly $12 billion in total assets under management as of 2023. Founders Fund was the first institutional investor in Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Palantir Technologies, and an early investor in Facebook. The firm's partners have been founders, early employees and investors at companies including PayPal, Palantir Technologies, Anduril Industries and SpaceX.
Samuel Harris Altman is an American entrepreneur and investor best known as the chief executive officer of OpenAI since 2019. He is also the chairman of clean energy companies Oklo Inc. and Helion Energy.
Lux Capital is a venture capital firm based in New York City. It was founded in 2000, and focuses on investments in emerging technologies.
AH Capital Management, LLC is an American privately held venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. As of April 2023, Andreessen Horowitz ranks first on the list of venture capital firms by assets under management, with $42 billion as of May 2024.
AngelPad is an American seed-stage startup incubator, launched in September 2010 by Thomas Korte and Carine Magescas with six other former Google employees as mentors. AngelPad provides mentorship, seed money, and networking at two 10-week courses per year.
Keith Rabois is an American technology executive and investor. He is a managing director at Khosla Ventures. He was an early-stage startup investor, and executive, at PayPal, LinkedIn, Slide, and Square. Rabois invested in Yelp and the Xoom Corporation prior to each company's initial public offering (IPO). For both investments he insisted on being a board of directors member.
Danielle Fong is a Canadian scientist and entrepreneur. She was the co-founder and chief scientist of LightSail Energy.
The Thiel Fellowship is a fellowship created by billionaire Peter Thiel through the Thiel Foundation in 2010. The fellowship is intended for students aged 22 or younger and offers them a total of $100,000 over two years, as well as guidance and other resources, to drop out of school and pursue other work, which could involve scientific research, creating a startup, or working on a social movement. Selection for the fellowship is through a competitive annual process, with about 20–25 fellows selected annually.
Valar Ventures is a US-based venture capital fund founded by Andrew McCormack, James Fitzgerald and Peter Thiel in 2010. Historically, the majority of the firm's investments have been in technology startups based outside of Silicon Valley, including in Europe, the UK, the US and Canada. Valar Ventures originally spun out of Thiel Capital, Peter Thiel's global parent company based in San Francisco, and is now headquartered near Madison Square in Manhattan. The firm's namesake is the Valar of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, who are god-like immortal spirits that chose to enter the mortal world to prepare it for their living creations.
Aileen Lee is a U.S. venture capital angel investor and co-founder of Cowboy Ventures.
Comcast Ventures is a corporate venture capital firm headquartered in New York, NY.
LightSail Energy (2008–2018) was an American compressed air energy storage technology startup. The company shut down in 2018, failing to produce a product. The unused tanks were sold away to natural gas companies in 2016.
Cathy Tie is a Canadian bioinformatician and entrepreneur, the founder of Ranomics, a genetic screening company, and of Locke Bio, a telemedicine company, both based in Toronto.
Snappy Gifts is a multinational company based in New York. The company, founded in 2015, provides companies with an online system to offer personalized gifts to their employees. As of October 2022, the company also offers an online gifting platform for individual consumers.
Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator is an American seed accelerator launched in January 2011.
CIIE.CO is an Indian startup accelerator and incubator that supports early-stage startups located at IIM Ahmedabad in Ahmedabad, India. It was founded in 2002 to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in India. It is a Center of excellence set up at Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad with support from the Government of India's Department of Science and Technology and the Government of Gujarat.
Thrive Capital Management, LLC, commonly Thrive Capital, is an American venture capital firm based in New York City. It focuses on software and internet investments. The firm was founded by Joshua Kushner who is also co-founder of Oscar Health and minority owner of the Memphis Grizzlies.
