“The rejuvenation biotech industry and shifting paradigm in medicine, keeping healthy people healthy, is going to be the biggest industry this planet has ever seen.”
As one of Germany’s most successful early Internet entrepreneurs, Michael Greve explains his pivot to investing in biotech and rejuvenation therapy start-ups. Greve notes that there are already significant advances in science and medicine, but a fragmented environment prevents efficient collaboration. For too long, Greve says anti-aging advancements have not delivered sufficient tangible results and he hopes to use his venture capital and network to help fulfill that potential. Greve ultimately believes the biotech industry, centered around keeping people healthier for longer, will be the biggest industry on the planet.
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE
SPEAKER
Michael Greve
Founder
Forever Healthy Foundation
MODERATOR
Anthony Scaramucci
Founder & Managing Partner
SkyBridge
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro and background
8:03 - Transition from entrepreneur to venture capitalist
10:23 - Greve’s personal health journey
14:50 - Forever Healthy’s mission around biotech, rejuvenation therapies and anti-aging
21:20 - Approach to aging and disease
32:02 - VC in biotech and market potential
36:00 - Biotech start-ups vs. traditional tech
40:30 - Latest $365 million biotech investment
43:53 - Management approach and attracting more investorsEPISODE TRANSCRIPT
John Darcie: (00:07)
Hello everyone. And welcome back to salt talks. My name is John Darcie. I'm the managing director of salt, which is a global thought leadership forum and networking platform at the intersection of finance technology and public policy. Saul talks are a digital interview series with leading investors, creators, and thinkers. And our goal on these salt talks the same as our goal at our salt conferences, which we're excited to resume in September of 2021 here in our home of New York city and our goal at those conferences and on these salt talks is to provide a window into the mind of subject matter experts, as well as provide a platform for what we think are big ideas that are shaping the future. And we're very excited today to welcome Michael brief to salt talks. Uh, Michael was one of the most successful founders of the German speaking internet industry together with his brother Mathias.
John Darcie: (00:57)
He created numerous ventures, including last minute dot D E a, which he turned into the largest last minute travel site in Germany. Most notably the brothers founded web dot D E and after a successful IPO, grew it into one of the country's most successful and largest internet portals and online media businesses. After the successful sale of his companies, Michael created the seed stage venture capital investment from Kazu, uh, that came to fund and mentor some of Germany's most promising tech startups, including babble Staffbase and Mamboo hosting taste talk is Dina Radenkovic. Who's a partner at the salt fund, which is an early stage venture fund and left investing in pro programmable biology, primarily life sciences, healthcare industry. Uh, now I'll turn it over to Dena for the interview.
Dina Radenkovic: (01:46)
Thank you, John. And thank you, Michael. I'm really delighted to share the stage with you today. Thank you for finding the time and calling us from and Germany. So perhaps we could start, obviously you have an incredibly interesting story and we'd like to find out more about it, but when John was selling your bio to kind of start with you are one of the most successful Durman tech entrepreneurs. Could you start by telling us a bit more about your early career? Like how did you become the most successful German tech entrepreneur, your brother Martinez? How did it become to develop last minute that the, that you sold last minute? And then, um, how did that evolve to create web D E
Michael Greve: (02:28)
Oh, yeah. That's a, um, uh, yeah, and interesting story there because, um, uh, actually I was my, my brother and I, we were always very, very interested in technology and, and I mean, we've lived through all the psych cycles of the tech world, basically owning one of the first apple, two computers in Germany, uh, teaching ourselves programming. Um, we both dropped out of university because we thought it's not that interesting to just learn stuff that numerous people already did before and started own software business and went to different stages. And, um, did software projects, uh, did software development for the Macintosh and, uh, and a lot of stuff. And then, um, at some point in time, this internet thing started and, um, and, uh, I was so excited about that. And, uh, that was really, really the super early days. So we had one internet happened, Germany that was in at the end, um, university of Tulsa, that was our hometown.
Michael Greve: (03:28)
And, um, I bought myself and, and, and a PC for, for, uh, uh, 86, uh, computer. And you had two very SCO Unix, or very, very complicated everything and your ISD and dial up networking. And, but I got ourselves an internet connection and the, one of the hops in Germany was university in Casa. So we made a deal with them that we could dive into the whole thing. And then we played a bit around with that. And then we saw the potential of the technology and we decided, okay, let's become an internet company. And we stopped all of our other business and said, okay, now we're going to be an internet company. And, uh, we were super excited about that thing. And, um, we went to, to seep it to the big computer fair by then. And we were on a small, um, uh, with a small booth there on the, on a shared booth with a big sign or company was called Synetic.
Michael Greve: (04:22)
And we said food service, internet, and, um, advertise that. And, uh, we went all over the show and talked to all the big companies and there were, sorry, everybody says, oh, internet, we don't need that thing. Or we have an it department, and yes, we have a server, uh, for, uh, Microsoft stuff, but we don't need this internet thing. So actually nobody wanted to have us. And, uh, the, the right next to us, there was not a small booth with the Greek guy and Manuel, and he wanted to sell, travel, uh, by using IST and to transfer the last minute bookings over IST and into PCs that were set up at, um, at the, uh, at, at the travel agent at travel agencies. And nobody wanted to have them either. So after the show, we said, Hey, we have to do something together. And then we said, you want to do this travel thing, but I stand is not the way to go.
Michael Greve: (05:14)
Let's do internet. And this is how we started last minute, Dottie. And, uh, basically as, as a, as a travel site and that by then people were still using modems to dial up to the internet. That was really, really early. And, um, we also started an agency business. We said, okay, we're going to develop a website and to all that stuff. And, um, and the question that always comes out, came up with the people I see, but yeah, this internet thing, but how would people find us? And we told everybody four months, yeah, there's this company, you know, Yahoo, they have this directory and somebody is going to do something similar in Germany. And, um, but actually nobody didn't. And then after a few months, like three, four months, I said, okay, we have to change that. And I wrote a little to put, to, to create a web directory. And then we just called in all our friends. And then, uh, over a weekend, we completely surfed the German internet. And by then there were 2000 websites in Germany and we put these 2000 websites in a directory and put that online under the name of web 30. And this is how it started from there. It just grew
Dina Radenkovic: (06:20)
Fascinating. Well, all the factors for successful second for nurse school, dropout learning, all being a bit discouraged by your idea initially, um, all the factors seem to be there. And, um, how was it working with your brother?
Michael Greve: (06:34)
Uh, well, actually we did, it was very good. So I mean, the, somebody I fully trust and we build, um, a web 30 to get the last minute to eat together. And, but when we sold last minute, but the, uh, somehow, or, um, entrepreneurial ways, part that he stayed a bit with the company when we sold it, uh, because we sold it to our biggest competitor and formed the largest internet business in Germany by doing so to compete better with Google and, and, uh, the American competition. And, um, so now I'm doing, we, we still have a shared office space and, but he's doing his things and I'm doing my thing.
Dina Radenkovic: (07:13)
Is there a lot of competition
Michael Greve: (07:15)
Between us? No, no, not at all. It's just the, uh, it's the, the, on the contrary we ate, well, we help each other a lot and we talk about our ideas and share. So, uh, I just had lunch with them, so it's really very, I'm really happy to have a very good connection to him.
Dina Radenkovic: (07:31)
Well, that's wonderful. I, it seems that you've had the great co-founder. And how has it, obviously, after, um, having and selling your company, so you went into venture capital and you had a very successful venture cap is a three-year as well by investing in some of the most promising Germany's tech startups, like Bob bell, fact-based bamboo many others with hizo technology. So how was it for you that journey from an entrepreneur to a venture capitalist and what are kind of the key take home messages that you would say to founder turns a VCs?
Michael Greve: (08:04)
It actually, it was just taking it to the next level and other time, because when we built web 30, I mean, we started out as a three, four people team. And in the end we have, uh, we had 700 employees and there was always a why we, we sold it because it was simply no fun anymore to run such a big company, because in the end, we really love to work with technology and drive things forward. And, uh, if you start growing your company and you're the, you're the CEO, I was the CTO. So you basically have your, all your product managers already that you're, and you have to coach them and make, make them successful. And, uh, once we sold web 30 is just taking it to another level because we, we don't see ourselves like just as financing people, but we really helped them to be successful.
Michael Greve: (08:50)
So this is our key, uh, approaches. We see ourselves as part of the founding team, we coach them, we mentor them. We really help them to build the equity story. And this is what I also, uh, enjoy most it's for me, it's not about, it was never about the money, but about the story that we could build, the success that we could create. And of course in the end, it really pays off. If you create something with a great story, that's very successful and with a lot of passion. So, and, uh, yeah, that's what we did. And then in venture capital, I mean, it's, it's a bit unusual in Germany in, in, in Silicon valley, it's the normal way to go. So once you're a super success, when you have all that experience, also all the growing pains, you know, if you grow from three to 700, um, there are a lot of, there's a lot of pain involved in doing that, and you have to learn a lot of things the hard way. And, um, and I had great, I had great coaches when doing that, um, that really helped us along. And we just wanted to pass that on. Uh, and, and to be helpful in that regards to our startups.
Dina Radenkovic: (09:55)
Well, it certainly turned out to be extremely fruitful. Um, and it's interesting to hear about your very hands-on approach, but investing, turning a bit more down the, the healthcare routes, you mentioned that you had the very unhealthy lifestyle of building your tech companies, as you can tell us a bit more about that. And do you really think that we need to have a compromise between healthy lifestyle while we're building and, and working hard? And w what's your view on that right now?
Michael Greve: (10:24)
Okay. So yeah, I had the super unhealthy lifestyle. It was like the epic tome of a hacker. You, you really could, if you would do this in a movie, you everybody would say, oh, really? Yeah. Uh, that can't be true, but it was true. So I was 20 kilograms, overweight, no sports. I was smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. I had two red bulls for breakfast. Uh, I had a bottle of red wine in the evening to calm down coffee all day. Uh, so smoking, smoking, smoke and meetings all day, and, uh, had a lot of fun working seven days a week, like 16 hours or so. And, uh, of course that was not super healthy. And at some point, uh, particularly after we sold web Dotty and bender the venture capital, I said, okay, this has to change. And, uh, and, uh, because I want to stay healthy.
Michael Greve: (11:11)
This is, uh, I say, okay, I can't go on like this. I didn't have haven't had any issues, but it became apparent that if I couldn't go on like this and to answer your second question, um, no, I don't think you have to compromise nowadays. I mean, 20 years ago that wasn't a wholly totally different story, um, to feed yourself, uh, to have a healthy diet or so that was something that was really uncommon by then. Um, nowadays, I mean, you have organic food everywhere. You can have paleo restaurants and you're in the cities. And, um, so it's, it's much easier from the environment to, to have a healthy lifestyle, but still it's a challenge because if you're really passionate and working on your thing, um, to find the time to exercise, to meditate, to sleep and to do all these things, it's challenged. Yeah.
Dina Radenkovic: (12:00)
Fascinating. No, I mean, for sure, and a lot of young people would say that they have to optimize for performance and that it's fairly easy to focus on health and lifestyle and wellness. Once people have a lot more time and resources on their hands, but obviously being a medical doctor by background, knowing that heart disease and atherosclerosis starts in adolescence, I'm very keen to kind of support this new wave of, uh, found well founded companies that have wellness, uh, at its core. And I think you, you totally explained it well that it's, we have no higher awareness. It's a bit more, it's a bit easier to do that. Right. So how has your lifestyle changed right now? You mentioned a bit of meditation. I don't know. You mentioned you had lunch. I didn't know if you had time restricted feeding. Was it later in the day, tell us a bit more about your longevity practices.
Michael Greve: (12:52)
Uh, generally I, I have a, uh, a very well organized schedule around that. So I, uh, I have my morning rituals. I, uh, I meditate, I do a yoga or Pilatus in the morning. Um, I do my stretching exercises. I do a gratitude journaling. I glued to affirmation. So all the psychology goes with that as well. Uh, I get my eight hours of sleep. I have a very good sleep hygiene and all these things. And then yes, I have a very clean diet, um, as well. So, uh, I, uh, look out for that, uh, as well. Yeah.
Dina Radenkovic: (13:31)
Okay. Well, you're definitely practicing what you preach and when you launch wherever healthy, I mean, forever healthy as an organization that does many things. So, um, it's a quite ambitious project. You will fund research at numerous incidents across the world. You do a lot of science education. So you run a conference and undoing aging that has now been moved for the spring of 2022. And you also, what I found really interesting is that you kind of grade this collections of medical knowledge basis and a research practical resources, depending for general public, to help them learn about longevity medicine. Um, and, um, obviously you also create companies in space. So which part of the forever healthy are you most passionate about and most involved on the day-to-day basis? Right.
Michael Greve: (14:20)
Actually, I have to say all, because right now, nowadays I don't do anything anymore that I'm not passionate about. That's the, uh, well, it was always that way, but it's clearly, it's clearly that, uh, that, that it's still that way. So I wouldn't do anything that, that, that I'm not really passionate about. Um, yeah, if I have a healthy, uh, is a mission-driven thing, um, we are completely private financed by myself. Uh, uh, I don't call it. It's a humanitarian effort, basically. It's about to enable people to extend the healthy lifespans. And, um, in order to understand what we're doing is if we have to understand what's going on in the world right now, especially in the world of, of, of, of science and medicine. So there are two really amazing facts. One is there is already a lot of medical knowledge that could be that if we would use it, uh, we could use to it to extend a healthy lifespans, but unfortunately that knowledge is buried in research, spread out over websites, special communities expert.
Michael Greve: (15:20)
So it's really, really hard to access even for medical doctors. So it's not really, really easy to access. That's one thing. And the other thing is that the world, as we know it, where we were completely helpless about our aging process and, uh, age-related diseases has started the transition to a world where we have aging under full medical control. And, um, H related, uh, diseases are a thing of the past. Of course we are not there yet. Yeah. But the theoretical groundwork has been done. Uh, so we know actually we know what we have to do in order to counter aging and through to, um, get rid of H related diseases, uh, on the theoretical basis. The basic research has started, uh, more than a decade ago. Uh, we have the first research results, um, uh, and even the first startups are there that take these, these initial results and try to turn them into therapies for human use.
Michael Greve: (16:18)
Of course we are not there yet. Uh, and we don't know all of them, this process will take it's it's, it's, it's a decade long thing. We don't know, maybe it's 20, 30, or 40 years. And, um, uh, but these two things together, the medical knowledge, that's not, that's, that's not used in this beautiful, uh, development of, uh, actually being able to reach of an eight people taking together that should enable us to extend a healthy lifespan quite dramatically if we use that in combination. So, and that is what we want to do. We want to accelerate that process. And so what we do is one-to-one, and we use, we want to use all the knowledge that's there today to bring ourselves to the future. And on the other hand, we want to accelerate the future. So the bring the future faster to us. And, um, this is also how forever healthiest structured.
Michael Greve: (17:05)
So one part of ever health is completely focused on what can I do today in order to extend my healthy lifespan, to a lower, the probability to have an age-related diseases and such. And on the other hand is what can we do to accelerate this future? And for accelerating the future, we are running the undoing aging countries, friends. We are, um, uh, we are funding research, uh, on, uh, the routine causes of aging and what we can do about them together with the [inaudible] foundation. And we also create startups in, in, in that area. Um, because I think this, uh, the, the, to really accelerate the rejuvenation, um, the availability of rejuvenation therapies, um, it's not enough to talk about this. I mean, if you talk to about, about to people about rejuvenation, it's totally sounds like science fiction, you know, and, and, uh, it's and you can talk as much as you want people to say, oh, okay.
Michael Greve: (18:02)
Interesting. But actually there's no emotional connection to that for foremost. So, um, right from the get-go my, my, my feeling was we have to deliver proof, and this is what we've set out with our venture capital company, because I've turned my venture capital company three years ago, completely on rejuvenation biotech. And actually we want to deliver proof and we want to prove that rejuvenation, um, is not, um, uh, science fiction anymore. And we also want to prove that, uh, Richard venation is not only for the Richards for everybody. Um, we want to prove that it's uncomplicated and we also want to prove that's the best business model ever. And when I talk about rejuvenation, we have to understand this. That's not going to be one pill or one shot that you get. And if you're 17, next morning, you wake up. You're 30. It's not working that way, but you have to understand aging. Aging is such a multifaceted process that you probably need like 50 or 60. Nobody knows how many different root causes and, and aspects we have to text. But what we can do is we can attack one after the other and, uh, reverse the damage that the body does to itself, just because it's an operation and, uh, reversed that step-by-step in order to extend a healthy lifespan. And this is exactly what we're doing with our startups.
Dina Radenkovic: (19:22)
Fascinating. So many things that will fall up, um, from what you've said. And I certainly believe that particularly in the, in the post pandemic environment and in the current climate, people are more interested, um, to firstly, more health aware and were instead invested in healthcare and in biological aging, and often kind of the barriers to entry into this field were from capital and talent perspective is exactly what you've said, lack of education. So I think what you're doing both with the academic conference, but also it kind of creating content for the general public and kind of democratizing access to this high end longevity medicine, which is just good preventative medicine, essentially. Um, it is really fascinating, and that is another reason why we got really interested in your work. And you mentioned obviously that there'll be multiple technologies, um, that are gonna focus on, on aging.
Dina Radenkovic: (20:16)
And you've invested in about a dozen off longevity companies and they each target when one's kind of looks at your portfolio, they each target a different pathway. Um, but often they have the aging as an indication, and sometimes it's another chronic disease or that is associated with aging or cancer. Which of these pathways would you, would you highlight from your current portfolio companies? And then secondly, do you think that we have a fundamental problem that aging is not classified as an and hence sometimes it's companies, even when they have good technology and good pathway to make sense? Um, they're, they're very plausible biologically, but they con go for aging as indication. So they almost need to find a plan B like another disease to go far. So they ended up spanning in clinical trials, even though the science is there, they're just not having managed to find the right fit. And how do you see that as a challenge in your current portfolio companies, but also in other companies in this field up for jubilation biotech as you called it? Okay.
Michael Greve: (21:21)
Yeah, that's a very good question. So, um, to answer your last question first, so, um, uh, aging as an indication, uh, is complicated. So because personally, I don't think that aging is a disease because, um, uh, you would, you wouldn't look at a house and say, this house has ages. The house has a disease. So aging is more a metaphysics. It's like the world, you know, uh, things age it's, things that just happen. So, uh, there's deterioration of something is an operation if your cost and operation, um, it ages, but it is, there's not a single process that you can say, this is aging. And, uh, uh, so, and also we have really, we have an issue to measure aging, so there's not a good way to measure aging and to quantify aging. So, um, so in that respect, what we're going for is individual root causes, and there are some root causes that are directly linked to diseases.
Michael Greve: (22:14)
For example, um, uh, let me give you an example, what, I mean, uh, one of our portfolio companies underdog, um, we are trying to get, uh, rid of heart attacks and strokes. So, um, uh, in order to, uh, understand what this has to do with rejuvenation is all the things that we see as age related diseases in, for example, heart attack, stroke, and even cancer are age related diseases because the prevalence goes up exponentially with age. So there's, there's, uh, uh, virtually no child, uh, at the age of 10 that has a heart attack, you know, but, uh, when you age, the, the, the, the probability of course goes up and in the end, we have to see, um, if we all would, uh, become old enough, we will have all, all each individual age related disease. It's just that one person dies of a heart attack sooner, and the other person dies of cancer, but in the end, we all have this deterioration that leads to all the age related diseases.
Michael Greve: (23:12)
So, um, uh, I think there's, yes, it would be nice if we have aging as an indication, but I think there's lots of things that we can do with the current regulatory environment. And underdog is a very good example. Um, uh, um, in order to understand what we are doing, there is an in how it relates to each of the nations, you have to understand how does a heart attack or stroke comes to pass. So in our bloodstream, we have cholesterol, uh, in particular LDL cholesterol, and that cholesterol enters the arterial wall. And in the, the cholesterol, the LDL is oxidized, and it's a recognized by the body as a foreign entity, then to get rid of it, the body causes the immune system to help. So the immune systems enter the arterial wall as well, and it sees the oxidized cholesterol and the immune system just, uh, gobbles that up the macrophages, the immune cells, and in the immune cells, you have a special, uh, waste processing plant called the lysosome.
Michael Greve: (24:12)
And so the cholesterol is pro uh, transferred to the lysosomes. And then the lysosomes, usually we have enzymes to break, uh, uh, things that we don't want down, and then they can be processed and released to the body or be disposed of, unfortunately, we don't have enzymes to break down, um, oxidized cholesterol, and that case it's seven Quito cholesterol. So then the body is really smart. Uh, the immune substance license has a plan B, so it says, okay, if I cannot get, if I cannot break it down and just keep it because it's harmful. So over time, uh, the macrophage and the license on when the macrophage, uh, gobbles up more and more of that, uh, oxidized cholesterol, and it grows, and then the license on growth and it, the, the, the macro fat grows, and it, it turns into a so-called foam cells. And these foam cells, they make up the plug in the arterial wall that grows first to the outside.
Michael Greve: (25:06)
Then it grows to the inside of the artery. And at some point the pressure is too high. And the arterial wall ruptures, the plaque goes into the artery and the body sees a, um, an injury. And then the platelets comes, you have to fix that injury by sticking together, and then you get a blood clot that blood clot closes up the artery, and then you have your heart attack. So, um, so what we have done now, we have developed a compound. It's, it's a funny thing. It's a, it's a sugar it's private, the most healthy sugar that you can think of. It's a cyclodextrin. And, um, that compound is able, you it's able to, through the bloodstream, enter their chair was entered the macrophages, enter the license zone, grab the C seven Quito cholesterol and transport it out of the whole thing and makes it disposable by the body.
Michael Greve: (25:56)
And by this re uh, turn the macrophages back into normal immune cells, deflate the plaque and no plaque, no heart disease. So basically what we do is reread juvenate the, the, the, the, the, the arteries by removing the, the plaque and restoring the youthful state. And it's a very good example of how rejuvenation works. Uh, um, we just remove stuff or we fix, uh, stuff that breaks and that the body cannot, uh, repair on its own. And by doing so, um, we, uh, no plaque, no heart attacks, let's say 80 to 90% of heart attacks are due to, um, uh, plaque summer, uh, through the chair cramping, but most of them are to no due to plaque. So, um, so this is how the technology works, and it's already pretty successful with so already demonstrated that we can grab the cholesterol, the seven keto cholesterol from foam cells and deflate them.
Michael Greve: (26:49)
So that's pretty cool. So now for accessibility, imagine you turn this into a, um, into a pill that, uh, and that is our vision appeal that in average cost $10 a month to swallow. So, and, uh, and this is also the, the, the big difference from the old type of doing medicine way by the paradigm was making sick people healthy. Again, I think we are at, at the, at the verge of a transition position and the new rejuvenation technology will allow us to do this transition to a completely new paradigm in medicine, which is keeping healthy people healthy instead of fixing things when things are broken. And so what I envisioned is a therapy that everybody over 35 can take that, but just prevent the buildup of plaque. Um, it's purely a smaller daily. And if, if you have that pill, no, uh, no heart attack, no stroke, beautiful thing.
Michael Greve: (27:44)
And, uh, our vision is that we can produce this pill for an average, let's say $10 a month, um, uh, maybe a bit more expensive in the Western world. And therefore in developing countries, let's say in India, maybe it's only $1 a month, but in the end, you have to see that we are talking about instead of a disease population. We're talking about everybody over 35 40, which is 4 billion people on the planet. And that also shows you that, um, it's going to be a super good business to keep healthy people healthy, um, because take 4 billion people that spend an average $10 a month. That's $40 billion per month, $480 billion a year. Um, let's say times 10 or 20 for a decent company evaluation. So we are talking about a market capitalization for the companies taking just this aspect of aging between five and $10 trillion. Just for that, I don't say this is going to be one company, but that's the potential of the market. And that's also something that we want to prove that this is a beautiful business model and a beautiful thing on your humanitarian, uh, side as well.
Dina Radenkovic: (28:55)
Fascinating. Well, I mean, Michael, you have quite a few interesting companies in your portfolio, and you obviously can to target most of the nine hallmarks of aging and a few additional things. You have a company like chondrial, hell, do you have a company? And it takes on a telomere raises. You have a company looking at cancer, you have a company with messenger and a technology, which is obviously an extremely interesting with the success of messenger RNA vaccines for SARS Coby, too. Um, but what I find fascinating is that the different approach that you're taking. So, um, just kind of to set a bit of a background is that for, for a big group of people in this, uh, aging research community, one of the necessary parts that needs to happen is the development of surrogate of aging. So they almost say like, if you, I mean, going with the old one, that if you can't measure it, you can't improve it.
Dina Radenkovic: (29:47)
They would say that it nothing really major can happen in rejuvenation biotech until we can quantify aging. And then we can slow in real time clinical trials that were conducted over five to 10 years, that the disease that aging is actually reversed. So, um, it's, it seems that you are saying that actually, we don't need to wait for the surrogate markers. We can start reversing this processes for chronic conditions associated with aging right now. Um, and when these come, they can kind of we'll incorporate in, but they're not necessary. Um, and, uh, the other thing is how do, what people often say is like, can we really fit this longevity companies into the standard venture capital model, right? Like, can they be as profitable as, I mean, you were in software and now you're turned into rejuvenation. So I've venture capitalists say like, yes, it sounds very interesting, but I can't, it's never going to be the same.
Dina Radenkovic: (30:43)
The, you know, it, within the timeframe solve the life of a VC fund, won't be profitable. It's more risky. Um, I mean, we focus very much on programmable biology, um, because we kind of use technology, um, and, and computational to solve problems in biology. So we believe that that the angle there is that it has a shorter translation time because this and this spectrum, whereas you have some really, really strong rejuvenation biotech company. So kind of going back from being a VC with softer companies, hands-on investment, how do you, how does that change when you, when you go to rejuvenation biotech, and you mentioned one aspect of making it profitable is essentially in trying to everyone, every adult should take it. Maybe we'll have it for, for every person, um, to kind of even stop, stop aging. But what are the other aspects that you think can be incorporated to make this more attractive for descender venture capital industry? Not just, yes, it's a good cause. And it's advancing the field that your reverts. So second one, okay. There is a bigger market because everybody ages at a certain pace. And is there anything else in addition, we can make aging research, particularly more biotech, play more fit for the VC model, or on the other hand, we need to change the financing model in order to advance this field.
Michael Greve: (32:02)
So, yes, uh, the nature. So, um, first of all, um, uh, I think one has to understand, and I strongly believe, um, the rejuvenation biotech industry and the shift, the shift in paradigm medicine, keeping healthy people healthy is going to be the biggest industry this planet has ever seen. So, um, it is, uh, I mean, if you look at, uh, uh, compare, uh, the, the value of having a nice mobile phone to, to what it's personally worth to you to know, I'm not going to age, I'm not going to have cancer. I'm not going to have a heart attack. I'm not going to have, so what is the difference, this and that. So what would you be willing to pay per year for having all this useful health for a long, long time? Whereas it's a new phone and now you see one company, uh, doing a phone has a market cap of $2 trillion.
Michael Greve: (32:53)
So that's one thing. And as you said, is, um, uh, in general for a VC or from an investment perspective, um, this is going to be the best business ever. I'm, I'm absolutely, uh, in, in for that, um, yes, financing might have to change. I think that, um, the, um, but, um, if you come from a D it is not the convention biotech play, I totally agree, but tech investors really get this, uh, approach that we are doing. So we're seeing a lot of interest from the crypto industry, from other tech investors. And also from my fund is, um, we are, we don't have partners, so we're just, uh, investing my own money and we're taking a very long-term view on the thing. So, um, we are thinking about 10, 15 years. Um, and, but there are people who can take that you, and especially in the tech world, there's a lot of money available and I think what it needs, and this is what we also try to do is by doing this companies and by showing what is possible to excite other peoples and in the end, it's just a matter of risk reward.
Michael Greve: (33:59)
Yes, it's super risky what we are doing, and it's especially risky, uh, what we're doing because we focus on category openers. So we invest in things that have not been done before, um, like a underdog or rebel, but we do it for example, uh, cross-link breaker decalcification. Nobody is doing this right now, but if we would succeed doing that, that's going to be a unique product, uh, with an enormous market potential and of course, high risk, but the reward is enormous. And of course, venture capital gets that. Um, so yes, you might have to restructure your fund. You might have to talk to your partners differently. Um, but there is a big, big upside, and we want to show this with our lighthouse investments that we do
Dina Radenkovic: (34:45)
Fascinating, but I, I'm a firm believer of that. And you've touched on two interesting things before I move on to the next section. And the first one is you go for new technologies and you make one bet per every technology and what it means technology. We often say in biology, we refer to a specific pathway. So often it's basically the first mover company that failed. Do you think that that can be, um, how often do you wait before you make a bet on a, on a certain field? So let's say in the field of San analytics or in the field of messenger and eight companies, or do you go with the first company that is driving the space and you think the first company has an unfair advantage that will start collect data as they go along and be the best. And then the second question that you touched upon there, you mentioned the link between cryptocurrencies and their interests. I mean, they're having a couple of Twitter threads, uh, quite recently about the link crypto and longevity, and that both that are kind of trying to, um, innovate in, in very kind of old, um, more, more central light industry, one kind of being financed, the other one being get traditional version of, of sick care medicine. Um, do you think there is an additional link, do you think we should get more people from cryptocurrencies interested in longevity or is that just naturally happened? Okay.
Michael Greve: (36:01)
So to answer your first question is, um, um, actually we don't invest in, if you take her, uh, if you really look at, we do not invest into, uh, companies per se, because it's not that the companies come along and then we invest them. We really helped to build, uh, especially our core startups, we help to build them. So it's usually in our experience, it was a two to three year process. We get in contact with the researchers, follow the research. In most cases, we even sponsored their research for two or three years, and then we help assemble a team. You need to see, oh, you need a good game plan. You need a development plan. Um, and it's not that easy. It's not like in, like in tech where you just have a few developers, they have a nice idea. You give them some money, everybody has a laptop, and then they do some programming and there you go.
Michael Greve: (36:49)
Um, it's completely different. So, uh, it is a two to three year process. So really we know the people for quite some time before we go. And there was the, uh, into the, uh, into company fund formation. It was the underdog with revel, with less strain and with Salvy, uh, all the same, we really went into the field and looking at the technology. And, um, and, uh, also this why we do this as Yardi is a lighthouse investments. And, uh, yes, I, I think that the first mover, it's not an unfair advantage is just a lot of hard work. I mean, uh, the, uh, if I look at rebel also, for example, when we tried to break cost links, um, they have been doing research for 10 years on that. So, and then, and then we respond to that research for, I think, three years, and now we're taking it to the company and still it is somehow at the research stage fund other three years. So it's a lot of hard work and nobody else is doing that work right now. So we're doing the work that nobody is doing. And, um, and, and, and, uh, yeah, we're doing this in, in a, in a company. Yeah.
Dina Radenkovic: (37:58)
And, uh, any notes on crypto on longevity?
Michael Greve: (38:01)
Oh, well, um, the things that we do or that sends to all the hallmarks of aging approach is this, um, basic old let's repair things that are broken. It's a very engineering approach. So it's, it's really like going to the root seeing what's going wrong, what's breaking down and then trying to fix that. And that also eliminates the need for complex markers. So if you see, if you have calcified tissue, you just decalcify it, and you can measure the decalcification. So there's no need for an epigenetic clock, for example, to do that. And, um, and, uh, it's obvious if something calcifies like your kidney and you can decalcified, it works better. So you get better rid of, uh, all the waste in your body. That's probably a very good thing. And, um, engineers get that the tech industry gets that the crypto community gets that.
Michael Greve: (38:50)
And I just expect that over time, more and more tech investors will move into the rejuvenation field, not so much the biotech investors. I think the funds are completely structured different. They have a different risk management, a different approach, um, uh, a different risk profile and, uh, take investors are used to making huge bets that prey pay off like a hundred times or a thousand times. You know, this is what people in tech look for. And also if you look at tech investing right now, um, the, the money that goes into tech, startups, dwarfs biotech investments in biotech, you're talking about all, we do an IPO at a hundred and 200 billion, a million that's already something. I mean, three of our startups already turned unicorns, hon, uh, before even going public. And, uh, we are in even pre IPO. We're talking about hundreds of millions flowing into our startups to gain market share. That's a totally different ball game. And I think we're going to see the same, same enrich of a nation biotech.
Dina Radenkovic: (39:56)
Yes. And I think that we're both on the, on the same journey, trying to bridge that gap between technology and biology and Michael, you recently made a incredibly impressive announcement offer to 360 million that you're going to devote to fund rejuvenation research. So, um, what do you plan to do with, with that, uh, money? Is it going to be through your funds? Is it going to be creating companies is going to be all of it? Can you give us a bit of, uh, an outline of your ambitious plan because you will have a decent budget to achieve quite a few things?
Michael Greve: (40:29)
Yes. So, um, that money, these 300 million euros or $360 million, uh, are in my venture capital company, keys zoo. And they are used to either form new startups, but category opening startups or support or key startups on the way to, uh, uh, to the clinic and to create product. And the, the idea is that we can track a stake. Uh, we can take a strong lead in our key investments, uh, which currently we have, uh, four of those and really support them all the way, um, uh, to, to the, to the end product. And by, um, taking a strong position, also encourage others to invest with us. So my, uh, I, I think that with, uh, taking the 300 million, um, we could, uh, enable and other three to four times, uh, the money in, in co-investments. Uh, so that's going to be a substantial amount of money that will really get our, um, uh, products, um, through the clinical phases, to the market, to price optimization, and to really get it to the masses at a very low price.
Michael Greve: (41:36)
So, because I think this is what is, what is needed most now in the market is success stories. I truly believe if we can show rejuvenation, for example, if we could show, I really hope for that. If we could show that we can remove plaque from the arteries in the end, by swallowing a pill every day, this is going to be really revolutionary. And then people will understand, oh, that is of a nation. It's not this machine where people are pushed in and then you push the 60 year old and then you get a 30 year old, but, oh, I just re we germinate. My Archer is, and I don't have a heart attack. Yeah. I get rid of DNA damage. Then I don't have cancer that is rejuvenation. And you do this in enough things. Then you, you, you, uh, keep a youthful body for quite some time. And, uh, once people would understand that the VC community will understand that will encourage other researchers to do this. So this is why I said, okay, we have to do this because we have been very fortunate with our internet investments. Um, as I said, we have three unicorns where we have been the founding investors and still on the substantial equity. And, uh, I just want to use these resources to really drive the, um, uh, uh, industry forward by creating successful companies
Dina Radenkovic: (42:53)
For sure. And I completely agree that we need a successful case study to really demonstrate the value and the purpose of this approach. And do you, have you carved out the percentage, what is for follow on rounds in your current companies? Because as you've explained, you have built your current company. So do you want to maintain the majority control over this? Company's hasn't moved fault, um, anything that you would have for creating new companies and what are your key partners on this journey? Often medical research happens in silos and aging kind of takes a step back to look at medicine instead of saying, oh, let's be hyper specialized led to say that many of these things that are likely to kill us just like here with aging. And there are similar disease processes related to nine hallmarks of aging and, and other things. So who are your key partners obviously sends Aubrey de gray and who is missing and w w what is missing in the ecosystem, um, that would enable you to do more.
Michael Greve: (43:53)
Okay. So, uh, to answer your first question, we're not going, um, uh, for controlling our startups. We don't want to have the majority. I personally, I'm a strong believer in strong founders. So we want to have the founders in control like that. That's not the case, usually in biotech because the founders are diluted to a negligible. And, but it's completely different in technology and technology. You need a strong founders and a few, we have to have the same here. Um, we just want to, uh, maintain a strong position to just help us guide our startups and be there for them. For example, it's very helpful if there's an investment round, you directly commit as an existing investor. Let's say I do 25, 30 or 40% of that round. So that, that, that helps the startup that gives the gifts, confidence also to other investors coming in, um, that also allows just non biotech investors to come in because the sell cake is always there. They're taking the lead, uh, which doesn't mean take the majority, but take the lead so I can just follow on. And this is already happening. Um, we have a lot of tech investors going along with us, they just say, okay, let him do the work. And we go along with it, but we also want to stimulate, um, uh, stimulate the whole thing. Yes.
Dina Radenkovic: (45:10)
Excellent. And anyone who are obviously sends, but any other key partners or
Michael Greve: (45:17)
Yes. So we are super open to networking. Um, we have one project running, uh, that's called the, the, um, rejuvenation network at QSU. We're building a network of a really loose network of venture capitalists, uh, universities, tech transfer offices, and really to create a community because, um, in, in biotech, especially with driven Asian biotech, um, the, the amounts of money that have to flow in the risk is very high and people like to, um, syndicate and to share the risks. So we are super open to that. We're really invite others to come in. Um, our main goal is to drive the industry forward to of course, to drive the, the, um, our startups in the, in this, uh, into, um, prove our key goals that it's working. It's inexpensive. It's for everybody. It's, it's uncomplicated and it's a good business. And, uh, but, uh, and this is also why we run the undoing agent conference.
Michael Greve: (46:12)
Our conference is a big networking event. Yes, it's about science, but hopefully next year, we're going to have the, the, the conference again. And the conference now has three tracks and one track is science. Second track is startups. And the third track is rejuvenation now. So what can I do now? And we're going to invite media as well. So we're going to have scientists, startups, investors, media, the blocker, but also the general media, uh, to prove that, Hey, there are things that you can do right now, the first analytics that can be applied today. And now it's not for the rich it's for everybody. I mean, you could take physically in as a supplement for us, might be a very good analytic, and that's just $30 a month. So that's not for the rich. Everybody could just buy that from Amazon, um, uh, to make that example. And so, yeah, I think networking and driving the whole thing forward is, is, is, is very important.
Dina Radenkovic: (47:08)
Thank you, Michael. And often we close it. What do you like to see play out in the next 20 years? But I think you've answered that in a sense that we're going to remove our cholesterol and one pill, and we're going to have one successful case study to kind of lead by example and in this field of longevity. Um, and, um, I guess what is the best way always you very active on forever healthy technologies is very transparent. You have a lot of information. Is there any other good way for people to keep up with, um, your, your team's work and your work online,
Michael Greve: (47:43)
Where you can, uh, go to our website, it's FIBA, uh, there shall be.org or.com. Um, you can subscribe to our newsletter. We have Facebook groups, we do regular online meet ups. You find that on our own page as well, where we talk about certain research that we do animal diseases that are a germination or maximizing health teams. We have scientists, uh, looking at, uh, all the latest research on certain topics and analyze that. So, yeah, we have to required a community around that, or you can visit the undoing aging conference. So we're very open if you want to collaborate as an investor, right. To ventures@qsu.com or find us on LinkedIn. Um, so we're really easy and we're very, very open, um, uh, to communicate
Dina Radenkovic: (48:29)
And share. Well, thank you, Michael. Thank you for finding the time and for sharing your impressive work. And we're very excited to have you in our network and John, over to you. Do you have any questions? Are you waiting for your cholesterol bill before you ask it? Yeah. You
John Darcie: (48:47)
Covered it pretty well. You know, I, I'm still a young guy, but, uh, you know, we could all use the cholesterol pill to help us out a little bit, especially in the pandemic. So, uh, we're, we're a few people have gained a, COVID-19 not just gotten COVID-19, but, uh, that's neither here nor there, but Michael, thank you so much for joining us on this week. Salt talk and thank you everybody for tuning into this week's salt talk. Uh, we love educating people on some of these massive breakthroughs that are taking place in the field of program biology and healthcare and life sciences, uh, that Michael has helped leading. And Dr. Dina has helped helping delete as well. Uh, just to remind you, if you missed any part of this salt talk or any of our previous episodes, you can access them on our website. It's salt.org backslash talks or on our YouTube channel, which is called salt tube.
John Darcie: (49:31)
Uh, we're also on social media. Uh, Twitter is where we're most active at salt conference, but we're also on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. And again, please spread the word about these salt talks. We love educating people. These are all free open for everyone to access. So if you found this conversation interesting, please share it with your uncle, your aunt, your grandfather, your, your dad, your mom, uh, and, and educate them about things that are going on in this space. But on behalf of Dr. Dina and the entire salt team, this is John Darcie signing off from salt talks for today. We hope to see you back here again soon.