Coinbase founder is going to research immortality

Original: Odaily (@OdailyChina)

Author: Azuma (@azuma_eth)

In the early hours of June 3, Beijing time, longevity technology startup NewLimit announced the completion of a $435 million Series C funding round. The round was led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, with continued participation from Abstract Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, NFDG, Eli Lilly Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, and others, while also bringing in new investors such as Thrive Capital, Greenoaks, and Quiet Capital.

WSJ reported that NewLimit's valuation in this funding round reached $3.1 billion, more than tripling from a year ago.

In its funding announcement, NewLimit revealed that, following a breakthrough in research, the company is advancing longevity medicine into the human clinical trial stage. Its first drug, aimed at treating alcohol-related liver disease, is expected to begin clinical trials next year.

NewLimit also emphasized: "By reprogramming cell age, humans may achieve longer health spans, and we are now closer than ever to the goal of delaying or even reversing aging."

The Founder Is a Familiar Face

Notably, NewLimit's co-founder is a familiar name — Coinbase founder and CEO Brian Armstrong.

In 2021, Brian Armstrong, together with former GV partner and bioengineer Blake Byers and stem cell biologist Jacob Kimmel, co-founded NewLimit with an initial investment of $110 million in South San Francisco.

Image: NewLimit founding team

Prior to this funding round, NewLimit had completed three financing rounds, as detailed below.

• In May 2023, it completed a $40 million Series A round from investors including Dimension, Founders Fund, and Kleiner Perkins.
• In May 2025, it completed a $130 million Series B round at an $810 million valuation, led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and Human Capital.
• In October 2025, it received an additional $45 million investment, pushing its post-money valuation to $1.62 billion, with backers including Lilly Ventures, Duke University, Section 32, and others.

According to NewLimit's official introduction, the company is dedicated to developing drugs that extend healthy human lifespans — "As we age, cellular function declines, making us more susceptible to disease. Aging was once thought to be inevitable, but emerging science suggests that the aging process can be reversed at the cellular level. We are developing the first drugs based on these discoveries to restore youthful function to aging cells."

In simpler terms, NewLimit is using science to research immortality!

Reversing Aging Is Not a Fantasy

Over the past few decades, while the scientific community has long recognized the link between aging and declining cellular function, it has struggled to find a precise way to "rejuvenate" cells. A breakthrough came in 2006 when Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka discovered that activating just a few specific transcription factors could reprogram adult cells into a youthful state similar to embryonic stem cells. This discovery, later named the "Yamanaka Factors," earned him the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Odaily note: Image shows Shinya Yamanaka speaking in Tokyo

Yamanaka's research proved something previously thought impossible — that cellular age is not irreversible, and the story NewLimit tells is built directly upon this discovery.

NewLimit writes on its website: "Our drugs work by activating specific transcription factor genes to reprogram the cell's epigenome to a younger state. We already know that this reversal is possible. However, for different cell types, the exact combinations of transcription factors needed to restore youthful function remain unknown. Discovering and identifying these effective payloads is the core challenge of our work."

NewLimit's strategy is to first target a specific disease to gain drug approval, then explore broader applications. As mentioned, NewLimit is advancing a drug for alcohol-related liver disease toward clinical trials.

NewLimit co-founder and CEO Jacob Kimmel further explained, Liver disease can essentially be seen as "accelerated aging," presenting the aging process everyone experiences in a faster, more severe form.

The Biggest Investors in This Sector Are All Billionaires

NewLimit is not the only tech company targeting "immortality" in today's market.

In 2022, Sam Altman invested $180 million in Retro Biosciences, which is currently developing drugs to rejuvenate aging cells and revealed last month that its valuation had reached $1.8 billion.

Additionally, Altos Labs, reportedly backed by Jeff Bezos, launched in 2022 with $3 billion in funding and has since raised nearly double that amount.

It's not hard to see that from Peter Thiel to Sam Altman to Jeff Bezos, the most enthusiastic investors in this sector are, without exception, ultra-wealthy individuals at the pinnacle of technology and fortune. Peter Thiel has publicly expressed his deep aversion to death, often stating, "Death is the greatest enemy of humanity, yet we treat it as a natural law..."

The logic behind why these tech titans are willing to invest billions of dollars is not difficult to understand — When wealth and power reach their peak, time becomes the only enemy, and the only luxury that cannot be directly bought with money.

With enough money already made, "how to live longer" becomes the ultimate proposition.