The founder of Coinbase is going to research immortality.

Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Azuma (@azuma_eth)

In the early morning of June 3, Beijing time, longevity tech startup NewLimit announced the completion of a $435 million Series C funding round. This round was led by Peter Thiel's fund, 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.

According to WSJ, NewLimit's valuation in this funding round is $3.1 billion, more than triple what it was a year ago.

In its funding announcement, NewLimit revealed that after achieving breakthrough research results, the company is advancing longevity medicine into human clinical trials. Its first drug targeting alcohol-related liver disease is expected to start clinical trials next year.

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

The Founder Is an Old Acquaintance

It is worth noting that NewLimit's co-founder is indeed an old acquaintance of ours—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, jointly invested $110 million to establish NewLimit in South San Francisco.

Photo shows the NewLimit founding team

Before this round, NewLimit had completed three previous funding rounds, detailed as follows.

• In May 2023, completed a $40 million Series A round with investors including Dimension, Founders Fund, and Kleiner Perkins;
• In May 2025, 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, received an additional $45 million investment, raising the post-money valuation to $1.62 billion, with investors including Lilly Ventures, Duke University, Section 32, and others;

According to NewLimit's official introduction, the company is dedicated to developing drugs that can extend people's healthspans—"As we age, human cell function gradually declines, making us more susceptible to disease. Aging was once considered inevitable, but emerging science suggests 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 scientific methods to research immortality!

Reversing Aging Is Not a Fantasy

Over the past few decades, while the scientific community has long recognized the relationship between aging and declining cell function, it has struggled to precisely identify methods for cells to "regain youth." A breakthrough came in 2006 when Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka discovered that by activating just a few specific transcription factors, adult cells could be reprogrammed into a youthful state similar to embryonic stem cells. This discovery was later named the "Yamanaka Factors," earning him the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Note: Photo of Shinya Yamanaka speaking in Tokyo

Yamanaka's research proved for the first time something previously thought impossible—that cellular age is not irreversible. The story NewLimit tells is built precisely on this discovery.

On its website, NewLimit states: "Our drugs can reprogram the epigenome of cells to a younger state by activating specific transcription factor genes. We already know this reversal is possible. However, for different cell types, which combinations of transcription factors are needed to restore youthful function remains unknown. Finding and discovering these effective gene combinations (payloads) is the core challenge of our work."

NewLimit's strategy is to first target a specific disease to gain drug approval, and then explore broader applications. As mentioned earlier, NewLimit is advancing a drug for alcohol-related liver disease into the clinic.

NewLimit co-founder and CEO Jacob Kimmel further explained this, stating that liver disease can essentially be viewed as an "accelerated version of aging," presenting the aging process everyone experiences in a faster, more intense manner.

The Biggest Investors in This Sector Are the Ultra-Rich

NewLimit is not the only tech company targeting "immortality" in the current market.

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

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

It's easy to see that from Peter Thiel to Sam Altman to Jeff Bezos, those most fond of investing in this sector are, without exception, super-wealthy individuals at the pinnacle of tech and finance. Peter Thiel has publicly expressed extreme aversion to death, often arguing along these lines: "Death is humanity's greatest enemy, yet we treat it as a natural law..."

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

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