Syndicate Update

October 1, 2022 | Spannr Ventures

Dear Investors, The month of September has proven to be full of activity, with many exciting companies emerging and/or raising capital in the longevity space.There were a number of funding rounds that have happened since our last update, and while we won’t cover them all, we’d still like to highlight some key trends and observations from the last month.

Notes From September

Reminder: For those who have recently joined Spannr Ventures, this is something we’ll be doing near the end of each month going forward. Our goal is to keep investors informed on what we are seeing in the market as we prepare to bring opportunities to you.Soon, we will be sharing actual deal memos and investment opportunities, but for now we thought it might be helpful to share some key trends we are seeing in the market.

• VC’s Are Waking Up To The Longevity Industry It is always great to see broader media coverage for the longevity industry. We can attest to the statement as we have noticed an increase in our conversations with dedicated VC funds that are broadening their pipeline to include longevity. Additionally, brand new groups like Life Extension Ventures, who are peripherally feuling the industry by backing entrepreneurs and startups leveraging software and data engineering, will be critical for the ecosystem's continued progress. 

• DisCo Companies Remain Popular Last month, we predicted that DisCo’s would continue to emerge. This month our prediction came true as a new and notable DisCo, Matter Bio, quietly launched.

• There’s More To Longevity Than Just Preclinical Biotech Companies While the therapeutics and drug development side of the industry remains critically important, it seems that many of the companies supporting the industry outside of drug development are continuing to pick up momentum. This month we saw InsideTracker, who is using their AI platform for personalized nutrition and healthspan, raise a $15M Series B round of funding. Rootine also raised a $10M Series A round to advance their precision nutrition to optimize health and human performance.

• Fertility Efforts Are On The Rise There is also a lot of work happening in the reproductive health and fertility sector of the industry. This has traditionally been an overlooked sector that is now getting more attention and recognition. Gameto announced this month they raised a fresh new round of investment to the tune of $17M from some notable investors.

September Funding Roundup:

• Lento Bio, a preclinical pharmaceutical company focused on developing small-molecule therapeutics to target molecular damage driving age-related disease, raises $680,000 in oversubscribed seed round led by Ichor Life Sciences

• InsideTracker, a leading healthspan optimization platform raises $15 million – with participation from PeakBridge, Cornucopian Capital, OurCrowd, and BASF Venture Capital GmbH

• Rootine, a precision health company relied on by professional athletes, raises $10 million Series A – with participation from Relevance Ventures, Techstars, and DSM Venturing

• Gameto, a biotech company using cell engineering to develop therapeutics for diseases of the female reproductive system, raises $17 million – with participation from Insight Partners, Future Ventures, Arcadia Investment Partners, Bold Capital Partners, Plum Alley, Myelin VC, TA Ventures, Gaingels, and Korify Capital

• Pretzel Therapeutics, a biotech company developing therapies to modulate mitochondrial function launches with a $72.5 million Series A – with participation from ARCH Venture Partners, Mubadala Capital, HealthCap, Cambridge Innovation Capital, Cambridge Enterprise, Angelini Ventures, GV, Invus, Eir Ventures, GU Ventures, and Karolinska Institutet Holding

• Innervace, a regenerative drugs firm growing an implantable biofabricated neural pathway to revive mind circuitry raises $40 million – with participation from Deerfield Administration, IP Group, Penn Medication, WARF Ventures, and BioAdvance

• Cleara Biotech, a preclinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing therapies for treating different pathologies of “scarred cellular” senescence, announced that it closed a $2.5 million seed financing round earlier in the year, led by Apollo Health Ventures, with participation from Curie Capital B.V., ROM Utrecht Region and Longevity Tech Fund

Patience remains the name of the game for us here at Spannr Ventures...Broadly speaking, the longevity industry is finally beginning to get the support and attention it needs. And although we’ve already seen a wave of private companies coming out of stealth in 2022, we’re seeing equally just as much funding news stemming from grants and non-profit foundations such as Hevolution, AFAR, and Impetus Grants. We’re also seeing institutional organizations such as Pfizer willing to contribute to VitaDAO to enable additional longevity research funding, dealflow, and community awareness.The Spannr team still remains in multiple conversations with both new and existing companies that we are looking forward to sharing directly with you soon. Let us know if you have any questions in the meantime and be sure to follow us on social media and to check out our weekly newsletter to stay up to date on the latest happenings in longevity. 

Best,Spannr VenturesP.S. Until our next monthly update, please fill out this survey if you'd like priority access to our deal flow.Many of our investment opportunities are fast moving and are extremely limited in terms of funding. For that reason, we will give priority to investors who are serious and able to act quickly.Again, the link to this survey can be found here.