Kate Batz (Longevity Capital): We are interested in 4 industries. The first 2 are Biology of Aging and Precision Medicine and Preventive Medicine. We are also interested in AgeTech and Longevity Related FinTech.

Kate Batz is Managing Partner at Longevity Capital. She is also a Director of Strategy and Business Development at Deep Knowledge Ventures, Aging Analytics Agency and Deep Knowledge Analytics. She is an experienced corporate attorney by background, licensed to practice law in California (2003), New York (2004) and Russia (2000).

How it all started? How did you decide to enter the venture investment business?

I’ve been with Deep Knowledge Group for over 2 years now. I have been fortunate to join this great team. My story is somewhat unique because my background is in Law. I managed to go through 3 different countries – Russia, the US, and the UK. I’ve been practicing mostly corporate law since 2003 in the US. Later on, I really got interested in the Longevity space, that’s how my roads lead to Deep Knowledge Group, where a co-founder is Dmitry Kaminski – one of the pioneers of this space and leaders of this community. I was excited to bring my expertise in legal knowledge as well as business development skills by joining this effort. Personally, I think that nothing is more important than human health, and the COVID pandemics highlighted this factor. 

VC and longevity – how they correlate? 

I’ll start with defining how we view longevity because for us longevity is very simple: it’s living healthier for longer. Another term for that is “healthspan.” It is nothing about, for example, being frozen and then unfrozen 500 years later; it is something feasible in our lifetime. Dmitry Kaminski established $1M prize for anyone who lives up to 123 years because the current record is 122. It is definitely a space that I think deserves lots of attention, because, unfortunately, the human lifespan has been expanding, however, this is not true with respect to healthspan. The last years of human life are spent in suffering and sick care. We want to shorten these sick years to have a longer healthier life. 

What surprised you when you started working in venture capital?

I would speak precisely about Longevity space. I’m based in San Francisco, in Silicon Valley, and there are many companies here focusing on Longevity – Google promised us to solve death in 2013. What surprised me is that while there were many remarkable successes in the extension of the lifespan of model organisms, like worms or flies, nothing was equally or even comparable with respect to the human lifespan. The problem is that many companies want to go public or they respond based on clinical trials and experiments with model organisms. But if a mice lives longer, it doesn’t mean that would be the same for us. I was surprised that it is not much progress overall. 

What was the most unusual startup in the space you supported?

It actually has to do with the fact how the entire group has started. Approximately 2013-14 (not officially it terms of legal structure), there is a gentleman, Alex Zhavoronkov who wrote the book The Ageless Generation. Longevity wasn’t a trendy term at all at that time. And in this book he has highlighted the economic and demographic impacts of the aging population, the importance of age in research, etc. Simultaneously he founded a now-famous company Insilico Medicine: it tries to apply Artificial Intelligence to drug discovery and developing molecules. This was the first company we invested in, it’s now doing really well. In 2014 it was kind of like a crazy fuel that no one really believed in, and then there are many companies in this space.

How startup teams usually find you? Do you wait for inflow or scout for interesting ideas and perspective teams?

I need to elaborate on how the Data Knowledge Group started. When we started, there were a number of companies working in age-related diseases, because it brings profit faster. If someone wanted to educate themselves on the topic of Longevity per se, it was really not much out there in terms of material. What Dmitry Kaminski has done, he established an analytical subsidiary of our Group, Aging Analytics Agency, and its purpose originally was to educate the founders about the space, so they hired a bunch of scientists and analysts that prepared 2 voluminous reports – The Science of Longevity and The Business of Longevity. In addition, we created a database of all the companies in the space and also the key players, like scientists, VCs, etc. And since 2015 we make it our objective to watch everyone in the space, so we know who’s who and what they’re doing, we have a number of dashboards, analytical tools, etc., etc. We are active in the space – we go to conferences, regularly release analytical reports, and people know how to reach out to us. It’s a kind of dual approach: we know everybody and people know us – we are relatively easy to approach. 

How many startup projects do you review per year?

We see a few hundreds. 

How many of them go through the first filter?

Not many, actually. Plus the last year was not the best benchmarks because we were in process of founding ourselves. 

At what stage you prefer to enter?

Early stage. 

Geography oof your interests?

We are not bound to geography – our team is international, so we can reach lots of companies. Yes, Longevity is very popular in Silicon Valley, still, we’re an international fund. 

What industries in the space you’re interested in?

We are interested in 4 industries. The first 2 are Biology of Aging and Precision Medicine and Preventive Medicine, especially if it has to do with applying AI to Precision Medicine data coming not only from older and sick people but also younger and healthier. We are also interested in AgeTech, which is rather unique and, I think, too much under the radar because it is about making the lives of currently living older people better, to improve their lives, not by medical interventions, but something that has to do with social interactions, loneliness, fintech for the elderly, etc. We believe that this sector is very promising. The other sector we like is the so-called Longevity Financial Industry. We cannot ignore the fact that if we live longer and healthier, our financial planning has to correspond to it. 

What is your due diligence procedure?

I mentioned that we monitor companies in the space ourselves, so we know in advance at least a few key points of information. So, the process can be relatively short and easy. 

How big is a check you usually issue?

Our approach to investing is diversified by sector and stage we enter. The projected size of our fund Longevity Capital is $100M. 

How you select startups to support? What are your criteria?

We want something that will be available in either short-term or near short-term. While we support, of course, scientific researches that rely on the classic approach, but we need to see a promise of tangible results in the relatively near future, like 5 years or less. Now we have the advance of AI, so we’re interested in this approach that does not rely solely on model organisms. 

What qualities you are looking for in startup teams? 

It’s very important to have the right synergy in the team. Obviously, an adequate scientific or business background is very important. We meet with teams and examine how they collaborate because a good team is one of the key factors for success.

Who you would prefer to work with, Steve Jobs or Steve Wozniak?

Probably, with Steve Woznyak, but I need to think about it. 

Have you ever supported a one-person startup?

We have no experience of such a company so far, but in this space, it will be extremely challenging if not impossible to be a single-person startup. Unless it’s something to do with AgeTech, with technology applicable to the older generation. 

What are your red flags?

If it is something that doesn’t come to the market in near future, this is a red flag for us. Obviously, if there is some evidence of issues with collaborations within a team, we don’t like this. The rest are classic due diligence red flags. 

Your target multiplication on exit?

You know, Longevity is not the area where you will make a lot of money, compared to, say, classic BioTech. It’s an ultimate objective, but it’s important to understand that many people in the space, including our founding partners, are actually big enthusiasts and pioneers. They spend a lot of funds to get attention to the topic. It will be great to get a good multiplier, but the likelihood of that in the immediate future is not high. We’re believing in the huge growth of Longevity industry in 10 years and that we’ll have a good return on our investments. Speaking of multiplayers, without going into details, our initial investment in InSilico turned out to be a great success. So, you can make money but the returns are much less – I wouldn’t say “guaranteed” because it’s no guaranteed return anywhere – but the expectation of return in the space should be turned down.

What was your reaction on COVID crisis?

Last year was challenging in many ways – and unique also. It happened that BioTech in general and Longevity, in particular, are amongst a few winners from this situation. Pandemic brought the realization of the fact that human health is the most important asset that we have. It was clearly evident that the elderly were the main victim of a pandemic because of the weakened immune system. We focus on aging and changes happening in our bodies as we age, including the immune system, we’re attempting to bring further attention to aging. I mentioned that we have Aging Analytics Agency, but we’ve ever focused on only one disease, yet we felt compelled to release analytics on COVID-19. A year and a half ago we developed rankings of countries based on the effectiveness or lack of their longevity policies. We made a few proposals, we are active on the government level, e.g. in the UK. Today we make a ranking of countries based on their COVID-safety using multiple parameters. And we actually continue doing this. Generally, last year it was a surge of investments in spheres of BioTech and Longevity, it was a good year for these spaces, because some investors who were previously focused on traditional areas such as Tourism or Real Estate, now want to do things with BioTech. 

Can you name the three most breakthrough startups in Longevity in history?

I would prefer not to answer this question, but refer you to our website. We don’t rank companies, but we provide a lot of information related to space. Of course, we’re not the only one exploring the space, but definitely amongst the pioneers. And I think there is a wealth of knowledge there and it’s a space which needs to gain further attention. We will definitely play our part in that. 

The greatest startup failure in Longevity?

If you look at some of publicly traded longevity companies, you can see their performance the last year. I would not call them failures per se, but this is publicly available information, and you can google the reasons why their stock market prices suffered in 2020.

Are you satisfied with where you are now in terms of your career? Or, maybe, you would like to try something new to apply your knowledge and ideas to?

I’m very excited about what we’re doing! I think that it’s actually a very impactful field. What we are not satisfied with is that we need to gain more attention, specifically to the issues of longevity and health span as opposed to age-related diseases. This is something that we’re working on and I hope that more successes and more funds specifically for longevity are to come in the next years. 

What are the most important things you have learned from the founders in the space?

I was pleasantly surprised and impressed by how people really care for the topic. It’s not about multipliers but has humanitarian aspects. We will all be winners by living healthier lives. I also meet a lot of brilliant people – scientists and businessmen. That’s a plus. And it is a very interesting and very welcoming community: if you would like to join some interesting talks (it’s free in most cases), you may easily do this. It’s good to see a big group of people that are making a difference in the space. 

Is VC business chess, checkers, backgammon, go, card games?

I’m not that good at these games, but I know that Go is quite complex, and this is why it was a big breakthrough there made by AI. We are definitely a more complex space than others. Assuming that I’d say that we are Go, just because human biology is extremely complex, there are so many unknown things there – still. 

Your three advice to founders.

Building a great team is important. Having a great deck is important. Being a professional is very important. It’s also important to be diligent and efficient in your reach-out and follow-ups. And it’s important not to give up because there are many companies that were rejected hundreds of times and then they became great successes. Believing in the idea and working hard very often pays off. 

Can you recommend books and sources of information?

Since approximately 2016 there’s been a surge of books. Number one is The Ageless Generation by Alex Zhavoronkov, Lifespan: Why We Age – and Why We Don’t Have To by David Sinclair, Age Later: Health Span, Life Span, and the New Science of Longevityby Nir Barzilai. From the VC perspective there is a book Juvenescence: Investing in the age of longevity by Al Chalabi and Jim Mellonbut, and it provides you an overview of the process of aging and the key hallmarks, then goes into the key companies in the space and provides some additional feedback. And, of course, there is our new book, Longevity Industry 1.0. Me personally, I like an issue of MIT Technology Review from August 2019 which was solely devoted to longevity, because for me it was a tipping point when classic science magazine accepted longevity as a topic and devoted an issue to that. There are many books that have to do with the economics of aging as well.