Latest news with #PeterDiamandis
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Tony Robbins and Peter Diamandis' longevity company Fountain Life raises $18M
Eight years ago, orthopedic surgeon Dr. William Kapp attended a medical conference that changed his professional life. He had gone from a private practice doctor to co-founding a company that built critical care hospitals to then selling that company. It gave him an interest for both sides of healthcare: the medicine and business sides, he told TechCrunch. So he went to the annual conference hosted by famed physician-scientist Dr. Daniel Kraft to learn about new tech that could improve results while lowering costs. Dr. Peter Diamandis, founder and chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, was on stage that year with Dr. Bob Hariri, a stem-cell pioneer and co-founder of several health techs like genomics company, Human Longevity, Kapp said. They discussed genomics, microbiomics, and new tech that wasn't part of mainstream medicine. Inspired, Kapp went back to his home town of Naples, Florida, and 'started a thing called Longevity Performance Center. The idea was to do early detection and then optimization of people's health,' he said. In March 2020, Diamandis (pictured above) and his buddy Tony Robbins heard of Kapp's center and visited. They had a stem cell startup called Fountain Therapeutics. Conversation soon turned toward a merger, and by October that year, the two companies became Fountain Life. Kapp remained CEO with both Diamandis and Robbins as his co-founders and board members. Today his board also includes Hariri as an adviser; Todd Wanek, CEO of Ashley Furniture Industries, as an investor; and wealthy Indian business mogul B.K. Modi as an investor as well. Fountain Life tells TechCrunch exclusively that it just raised an $18 million series B, led by EOS Ventures, with participation from most of the existing members of the board. Fountain previously raised an $80 million Series A and has raised about $108 million total, Kapp said. Longevity as a subject of serious study by the medical community is a new field. When Kapp (pictured below) first launched his center, 'We didn't know exactly what longevity meant,' he said. But over the last four or five years, much more research has been done. The first principle of longevity, he said, is 'don't die of anything stupid.' Therefore, Fountain Life's centers, of which there are four today, have a heavy focus on prevention screening, looking for illnesses and chronic conditions at their earliest stages when they tend to be asymptomatic. Blood tests and body scans gather data on over 100 biomarkers from liver fat to 'microbiome concentrations,' he said. The second principal is optimization, meaning improving those markers with scientifically validated treatments, he said. And the third principal is 'using the latest regenerative therapies under FDA trials,' to treat illness or achieve optimization. Screening tests may discover, for example, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), which, left untreated, may lead to certain cancers, he said. The solution, if caught early, is to restore microbiome balance with specific, prescribed microbiotics. For Fountain's members, testing is repeated every quarter or so, and patients can track results and ask questions of an AI-powered app called Zori. But it's pricey, Kapp admitted. A full subscription costs $30,000 a year, and $10,000 will cover just the testing process and AI, but not ongoing tests and medical support. Still, Kapp remembers two stories that told him this work was on the right track. The wife of a Robbins fan bought a membership for her husband, and the tests caught early-stage, asymptomatic kidney cancer. The husband is now cancer-free. When global hotelier Sam Nazarian was exploring a partnership with Fountain to put longevity centers in luxury hotels, Nazarian did Fountain's tests and found a brain aneurysm. They successfully treated it, Nazarian has publicly said. Kapp says the new funding will allow the company to open more centers. In addition to Naples; Westchester, New York; Orlando; and Dallas, a center in Houston will open in December. Centers in Los Angeles and Miami are planned for Q2 of 2026. He hopes to solve the affordability issue by working on 'clinic development' where Fountain trains medical facilities on its methodologies. Kapp says that as the tech and expertise become more widely available, this will drive down costs for access. Fountain is not the only doctor-driven longevity testing startup. Famed functional health doctor Mark Hyman has a company called Function Health. It offers a package of about 160 blood tests, with follow-up tests every three to six months, for a $500/year membership (with additional fees for additional blood tests). Its platform similarly analyzes and tracks test results, although it doesn't do full body scans or offer direct access to physicians.
TechCrunch
4 days ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Tony Robbins' and Peter Diamandis' longevity company Fountain Life raises $18M
Eight years ago, orthopedic surgeon Dr. William Kapp attended a medical conference that changed his professional life. He had gone from a private practice doctor to co-founding a company that built critical care hospitals to then selling that company. It gave him an interest for both sides of healthcare: the medicine and business sides, he told TechCrunch. So he went to the annual conference hosted by famed physician-scientist Dr. Daniel Kraft to learn about new tech that could improve results while lowering costs. Dr. Peter Diamandis, founder and chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, was on stage that year with Dr. Bob Hariri, a stem-cell pioneer and co-founder of several health techs like genomics company, Human Longevity, Kapp said. They discussed genomics, microbiomics, and new tech that wasn't part of mainstream medicine. Inspired, Kapp went back to his home town of Naples, Florida, and 'started a thing called Longevity Performance Center. The idea was to do early detection and then optimization of people's health,' he said. In March 2020, Diamandis (pictured above) and his buddy Tony Robbins heard of Kapp's center and visited. They had a stem cell startup called Fountain Therapeutics. Conversation soon turned toward a merger, and by October that year, the two companies became Fountain Life. Kapp remained CEO with both Diamandis and Robbins as his co-founders and board members. Today his board also includes Hariri as an adviser; Todd Wanek, CEO of Ashley Furniture Industries, as an investor; and wealthy Indian business mogul B.K. Modi as an investor as well. Techcrunch event Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital, Elad Gil — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $600+ before prices rise. Tech and VC heavyweights join the Disrupt 2025 agenda Netflix, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Sequoia Capital — just a few of the heavy hitters joining the Disrupt 2025 agenda. They're here to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don't miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch Disrupt, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech — grab your ticket now and save up to $675 before prices rise. San Francisco | REGISTER NOW Fountain Life tells TechCrunch exclusively that it just raised an $18 million series B, led by EOS Ventures, with participation from most of the existing members of the board. Fountain previously raised an $80 million Series A and has raised about $108 million total, Kapp said. Longevity as a subject of serious study by the medical community is a new field. When Kapp (pictured below) first launched his center, 'We didn't know exactly what longevity meant,' he said. But over the last four or five years, much more research has been done. The first principle of longevity, he said, is 'don't die of anything stupid.' Therefore, Fountain Life's centers, of which there are four today, have a heavy focus on prevention screening, looking for illnesses and chronic conditions at their earliest stages when they tend to be asymptomatic. Blood tests and body scans gather data on over 100 biomarkers from liver fat to 'microbiome concentrations,' he said. The second principal is optimization, meaning improving those markers with scientifically validated treatments, he said. And the third principal is 'using the latest regenerative therapies under FDA trials,' to treat illness or achieve optimization. Screening tests may discover, for example, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO), which, left untreated, may lead to certain cancers, he said. The solution, if caught early, is to restore microbiome balance with specific, prescribed microbiotics. Dr. William Kapp Image Credits:Fountain Life For Fountain's members, testing is repeated every quarter or so, and patients can track results and ask questions of an AI-powered app called Zori. But it's pricey, Kapp admitted. A full subscription costs $30,000 a year, and $10,000 will cover just the testing process and AI, but not ongoing tests and medical support. Still, Kapp remembers two stories that told him this work was on the right track. The wife of a Robbins fan bought a membership for her husband, and the tests caught early-stage, asymptomatic kidney cancer. The husband is now cancer-free. When global hotelier Sam Nazarian was exploring a partnership with Fountain to put longevity centers in luxury hotels, Nazarian did Fountain's tests and found a brain aneurysm. They successfully treated it, Nazarian has publicly said. Kapp says the new funding will allow the company to open more centers. In addition to Naples; Westchester, New York; Orlando; and Dallas, a center in Houston will open in December. Centers in Los Angeles and Miami are planned for Q2 of 2026. He hopes to solve the affordability issue by working on 'clinic development' where Fountain trains medical facilities on its methodologies. Kapp says that as the tech and expertise become more widely available, this will drive down costs for access. Fountain is not the only doctor-driven longevity testing startup. Famed functional health doctor Mark Hyman has a company called Function Health. It offers a package of about 160 blood tests, with follow-up tests every three to six months, for a $500/year membership (with additional fees for additional blood tests). Its platform similarly analyzes and tracks test results, although it doesn't do full body scans or offer direct access to physicians.
South China Morning Post
02-06-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
XPrize founder Peter Diamandis projects hope for AI, biotech amid US-China tech war
Peter Diamandis, the entrepreneur behind the XPrize Foundation, has long championed a future of technological promise, building a career on innovation competitions meant to solve grand challenges. But in a recent conversation in Hong Kong, a subtle shift in tone emerged as he addressed the current complexities of global scientific collaboration, clouded by geopolitical tensions and the looming threat of technological decoupling. Advertisement 'One of the things that is important to realise is that human biology is conserved across 8 billion people, as is math and physics and chemistry,' he said. 'So a breakthrough by a brilliant entrepreneur or scientist in Beijing is fully usable and accessible by a brilliant scientist in Boston. That elevates humanity as a whole.' His cosmopolitan vision of scientific progress stands in contrast to the current political climate, in which the US, under the administration of President Donald Trump, has sought to curb international student visas and made drastic cuts to scientific funding and universities. 'There's a huge amount of concern,' Diamandis said, pointing specifically to the cuts at the National Institutes of Health. 'Unless it gets corrected and changed back, I think that the cuts being made … will have long-term implications to the speed of scientific discoveries.' Diamandis spoke with the Post on May 28 while visiting Hong Kong for the UBS Asian Investment Conference. He is perhaps best known for incentivising breakthroughs through his XPrize competitions, which served as an early catalyst for the private space flight industry that spawned companies such as Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. Discussing the more positive aspects of technological progress is clearly where he feels most comfortable. Advertisement 'Our brains are wired for fear and scarcity, and my job through my work is to help people see the world in a different fashion,' he said.
Medscape
29-05-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Medscape 2050: Peter Diamandis
Medscape 2050: The Future of Medicine The bowhead whale can live for 200 years. The Greenland shark can live up to 500 years. Why can't humans live that long? For Peter Diamandis, MD, executive founder of Singularity, founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, and founding partner of Fountain Life, the answer is simple. 'It's either a software problem or a hardware problem. And we're going to be able to solve that.' The medical field is on an 'exponential growth curve' owing to the impact of AI systems, Diamandis says. Soon, we will be able to map the human body on a cellular level for each individual. Trillions of cells, running billions of chemical reactions every second, are too vast for the human brain to grasp. But not for AI. 'Imagine a future,' Diamandis says, 'where drugs are designed, not discovered. Drugs are designed specifically not just for a disease, but for your version of the disease.' A shift from reactive to preventive medicine is also getting closer. Sensor technology will pick up details such as voice tone, walking rhythm, or the sound of a cough and recommend further tests to catch health issues earlier. For Diamandis, 'data is king.' Your data can reveal your optimal lifestyle plan for diet, exercise, sleep, and mindset. And 'your mindset,' Diamandis says, 'is the most important thing that you possess.' If you believe that we will bend the longevity curve, if you approach these new technologies with optimism, you might just live long enough to experience them.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Global longevity competition for $101 million names semifinalists—here are their ideas for extending life by 10 years or more
The contestants in a race to extend life are on their second lap. In a seven-year global competition, teams are rushing to discover novel therapeutics and interventions that can extend human life by a decade and help people age well. In 2023, Peter Diamandis, an entrepreneur, self-proclaimed futurist, and founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, launched the $101 million healthspan competition. Since then, over 600 teams from 58 countries have put their ideas in the ring, including medical devices, lifestyle interventions, and biological therapies. Today, the competition awarded each of the top 40 teams $250,000 to help them test their hypotheses in clinical trials. 'We're really pushing at a global scale for people to accelerate the process, so we can get real solutions in the hands of people who need them,' Jamie Justice, PhD, executive director of XPRIZE Healthspan, tells Fortune. Teams from all over the globe, composed of students, university researchers, and even a Nobel Prize winner, are competing for the coveted prize, which will amount to $81 million. One team of high schoolers from Malaysia pitched a community-based solution that includes facilitating drum circles with older adults. Another team is testing the potential life-extending benefits of popular diabetes and weight-loss drugs, GLP-1s. Still another is examining whether the drug Metformin can help prevent cognitive decline. By 2030, the winner will have shown that their therapy can restore muscle, cognitive, and immune function in a one-year clinical trial of older adults. "The next breakthrough in aging could come from scientists and entrepreneurs, anywhere. With this prize, we're igniting a global healthspan revolution, and these semifinalists are leading the charge," said Diamandis, in a press release. "This competition isn't just accelerating progress, it's challenging our society's beliefs in what's possible when it comes to aging." Judges made up of leading researchers and scientists in the field assessed teams based on whether they illustrated 'really solid innovation [on a] potential breakthrough that could affect all of the processes that underlie how we age,' says Justice. Teams had to show a readiness for clinical trials with strong evidence of an intervention that can be scaled to the broader population. While people are living longer, there is still a decade-long gap, on average, between how well people live and how well they live in good health. This competition is hoping to reduce the gap and extend how long people live in good health. 'We're looking at solutions that can be proactive and can be generalized to a greater population, so that we can begin to address that gap at a population level,' Justice says. Teams will submit data from their clinical trials by April of next year, ahead of XPRIZE selecting the top ten finalists in July of 2026, followed by the grand prize winner selected in 2030. This story was originally featured on
