NEWS
Recent press, public appearances, and other 50Y news
50Y raised Fund III from iconic founders of unicorn companies. This $90M is exclusively for founders building insanely ambitious, incredibly hard, and radically important companies to solve the world’s biggest problems.
Our newest portfolio company is a hot topic in the crypto world -- Worldcoin seeks out to distribute its new currency to as many as possible while embracing inclusion and equality.
In this post, we present to you LatchBio, the company building a bridge between biology and bioinformatics. They created a web-based platform which will make it easier than ever for bioinformaticians to develop and biologists to deploy bioinformatic workflows.
Think delicious cheese, but without the usual harm to the living creatures and the environment. The post uncovers the latest partnership with Nobell Foods, a company working on a whole new level of vegan dairy products. Plant based cheese doesn’t have to be way too expensive and lacking in protein anymore -- click to see for yourself!
In our newest Substack post we introduce to you our partnership with Faction -- the answer to all the issues the driverless vehicle industry has been dealing with up until now. Read about Faction’s strategy & vision for bringing a fleet of their vehicles to the streets!
In early July, we hosted another Impact.Tech seminar - this time, after a long break, we were able to meet in person in San Francisco! Martin Borch Jensen, the CSO of Gordian Biotechnology, shared his knowledge and insights around the science of anti-aging.
In the past months, we’ve been working on the Racial Inequity Drawdown project. Our fellow Olivia Tai led the effort and helped us create an open-source document that we are happy to share with you - find it here.
The project was recently described by Ron Miller in a TechCrunch article “Firm creates open framework to help VCs and founders address racial inequity”.
Our June Impact.Tech seminar was led by RMI’s Ankit Kalanki, Caroline Winslow, and Rushad Nanavatty. We learned about the problems the cooling systems currently in use face and found out about the alternatives, opportunities, and challenges in the cooling field.
Seth was invited to join a panel discussion about the challenges and opportunities of managing an impact-focused fund, from convincing LPs to defining an investment strategy and tracking the portfolio’s impact.
In our recent Substack post, we take a deep dive into the technology that can bring about a massive positive societal impact. Deepcell’s technology reduces the labor and cost that go into cell classification and isolation while making it more robust and improving its chances of finding unexpected results.
We met again in early May for a Statistical Literacy in Deep Tech seminar. Noel Jee, a Principal at Illumina Ventures, led us through the nuances of statistical literacy, sharing a bit about the effective interpretation of statistics and scientific data.
Seth was invited to join a panel around climate tech at Stanford’s ASES summit. Together with other investors and startup founders, he discussed the present and future of climate tech.
A life sciences entrepreneurship program Activate Eco invited Seth to one of their spring workshops, where he could share his expertise in storytelling & presentation.
We’re excited to announce our partnership with Noya Labs - a company proposing a new solution to the problems around Direct Air Carbon Capture (DAC). Learn more about the founders, their idea, and the outcomes from our post below:
Prashanth Srinivasan joined us for episode 3 of Translation podcast to talk about making life-saving drugs in a bioreactor, insulated from the issues that make them expensive and in short-supply. In episode 4 with Kevin Parker, we share a bit about CAR T therapies, their problematic nature, and the solution to the neurotoxicity issue. Jessica Cortez joined us for episode 5 to discuss stabilizing regulatory T cells and her efforts to bring this incredibly powerful cell type to the clinic to help millions of patients suffering from a myriad of diseases
We opened Season 2 of Translation podcast with Corina Amor Vegas, a physician scientist who discussed engineering T cells to attack senescent cells, a cell type that contributes to diseases of aging. Episode 2 features James Martin discussing an extremely potent antibiotic that targets multiple different classes of bacteria.
During this seminar, we discussed the possibilities and challenges we need to face in order to achieve the most ambitious climate targets. The event was led by David Babson, a Program Director at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA‑E).
Sustainability is becoming a key concept for a growing number of both companies and consumers. During this seminar, we learned about the history of clothing’s production methods and discussed the possibilities that are opening for fashion in the future. The seminar was taught by Beth Esponnette, co-founder of a fashion startup unspun.
Seth took part in an investor panel during the online event organized by Hummingbird Ventures, during which researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors discussed engineering biology for a more sustainable future.
Ela was featured on the cover of the Polish edition of Forbes. In the interview, she shared a little bit about her background and explained what Fifty Years’ vision is and how we make it real with the help of our portfolio companies.
Photo credit: Jason Henry
