The founder of Coinbase is going to study immortality.

Once you've made enough money, "how to live longer" becomes the biggest question.

Author: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily

In the early morning of June 3rd Beijing time, longevity technology startup NewLimit announced the completion of $435 million in Series C funding, led by Peter Thiel's fund Founders Fund, with continued participation from Abstract Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, NFDG, Eli Lilly Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, and new investors including Thrive Capital, Greenoaks, Quiet Capital.

The WSJ reported that NewLimit's valuation in this round of funding is $3.1 billion, more than tripling compared to a year ago.

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

NewLimit also emphasized: “By reprogramming cell age, humans may achieve longer healthy lifespans, and now, humanity is closer than ever to the goal of ‘delaying and even reversing aging.’”

Founders are old acquaintances

It’s worth noting that the co-founder of NewLimit is our old acquaintance — Coinbase founder and CEO Brian Armstrong.

In 2021, Brian Armstrong, along with former GV partner and bioengineer Blake Byers and stem cell biologist Jacob Kimmel, invested $110 million to establish NewLimit in Southern San Francisco.

Photo of the NewLimit founding team

Before this round of funding, NewLimit had completed three funding rounds, specifically:

• In May 2023, raised $40 million in Series A funding, with investors including Dimension, Founders Fund, and Kleiner Perkins;

• In May 2025, raised $130 million in Series B funding, with a valuation of $810 million, led by Kleiner Perkins, with follow-on investments from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, and Human Capital;

• In October 2025, received an additional $45 million, bringing the post-money valuation to $1.62 billion, with investors including Lilly Ventures, Duke University, Section 32, and others;

According to NewLimit’s official description, the company is dedicated to developing drugs that can extend human healthy lifespan — “As we age, human cell functions gradually decline, making us more susceptible to disease. It was once believed that aging was unavoidable, but emerging science shows that the aging process can be reversed at the cellular level. We are developing the first drugs based on these discoveries to restore the youthful functions of aging cells.”

In simpler terms, NewLimit is scientifically researching the secret to eternal youth!

Reversing aging is not a fantasy

Over the past few decades, although the scientific community has long recognized the relationship between aging and cellular function decline, they have never been able to precisely find a way to make cells “rejuvenate.” The turning point came in 2006, when Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka discovered that by activating a few specific transcription factors, adult cells could be reprogrammed into a youthful state similar to embryonic stem cells. This discovery was later named “Yamanaka Factors,” and helped him win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2012.

Photo of Shinya Yamanaka giving a lecture in Tokyo

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

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

NewLimit’s strategy is to start with a specific disease, aim for drug approval, and then explore broader applications. As mentioned earlier, NewLimit is also advancing a drug targeting alcohol-related liver disease into clinical trials.

Co-founder and CEO Jacob Kimmel further explained that liver diseases can actually be viewed as a form of “accelerated aging,” which presents the natural aging process in a faster and more intense way.

The most enthusiastic investors in this track are all billionaires

NewLimit is not the only tech company currently targeting “immortality.”

In 2022, Sam Altman invested $180 million in Retro Biosciences, which is developing drugs to restore vitality to aging cells, and last month, it was revealed that its valuation has reached $1.8 billion.

Additionally, Altos Labs, reportedly supported by Jeff Bezos, launched in 2022 with $3 billion, and has nearly doubled that amount in total funding so far.

It’s not hard to see that from Peter Thiel to Sam Altman to Jeff Bezos, the most avid investors in this field are all super-rich at the top of the tech and wealth pyramid. Thiel has publicly expressed extreme dislike for death, often advocating views like: “Death is humanity’s greatest enemy, yet we treat it as a natural law…”

The reason these tech giants are willing to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into this is quite straightforward — once wealth and power reach their peak, time becomes the only enemy and the only luxury money can’t buy.

They’ve already made enough money, so “how to live longer” becomes the biggest question.