20VC: Why Raising A First Time Fund Is Like Raising A Seed Round, Why We Need New and Different Fund Models & Why Longevity Is The Most Rewarding Place To Invest with Laura Deming, Founding Partner @ The Longevity Fund

Laura Deming is Founding Partner @ The Longevity Fund, the first VC firm dedicated to funding high-potential longevity companies. To date, Laura has raised $26m across 2 Longevity funds and has backed the likes of Unity Biotechnology, Precision Biosciences, Metacrine, Navitor, and Alexo Therapeutics. Prior to Longevity, Laura was accepted to MIT at the age of 14 to study physics and then dropped out to join the Thiel Fellowship and start The Longevity Fund. If that wasn't enough, Laura most recently founded Age1, a four-month startup accelerator program focused on founders creating longevity companies. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Laura made her way from studying physics at MIT at just 14 to founding The Longevity Fund and dropping out to join The Thiel Fellowship? 2.) As a 16-year-old, looking to raise a fund to invest in longevity, how was the fundraise process for Laura? Why does Laura believe that raising your first fund is very much like raising a seed round for a company? What was the catalytic moment when the fundraise started to come together? What were the biggest challenges of the raise? 3.) Why does Laura believe that there is a shortage of young biotech founders today? What can be done to solve this and increase pipe? How does Laura find biotech founders compare to more traditional consumer and B2B founders she engages with? How does what they look for from their investor base differ? 4.) Laura has spoken before of "the importance of going against the herd"? How does Laura assess the current landscape for biotech investing? Is Laura concerned to see the entrance of much more traditional VCs into the space? How does Laura look to try and avoid groupthink? What is crucial to this? 5.) How does one need to think about portfolio construction when investing in an inherently riskier biotech space? Does Laura agree with the conventional wisdom around the lack of follow-on funding for biotech companies? How does Laura think about reserve allocation with Longevity today? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Laura’s Fave Book: The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain, Laura’s Most Recent Investment: System1 As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Laura on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  We are back for another week in the world of the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, at H Stebbings 1996 with two Bs on Instagram. And my word, what an episode we're back with today. I have to say, I really couldn't be prouder of this episode. It's such an incredible individual with a phenomenal journey to today and could not be more excited for the next chapters ahead for her. So with that in mind, I'm thrilled to welcome Laura Deming, founding partner at the Longevity Fund, the first VC firm dedicated to funding high potential longevity companies. And to date, Laura has raised $26 million across two longevity funds and has backed the likes of Unity Biotechnology, Precision Biosciences, Metacrine, Navitor and Alexotherapeutics. Prior to longevity, check this out, Laura was accepted to MIT at the age of just 14 years old to study physics

• 0:45Harry Stebbings?

  and then dropped out to join the Thiel Fellowship and start the Longevity Fund. If that wasn't enough, Laura's also most recently founded Age One, a four month startup accelerator program focused on founders creating longevity companies. And I do also want to say a huge thank you to former guest, Daniel Gross at Pioneers. For the intro to Laura's today, I really do so appreciate that, my friend. However, before we dive into all things life extension with Laura, I want to spend a little time on Hims, a new wellness brand for men. So 66% of men lose their hair by the age of 35. And what amazes me is why guys still turn to weird solutions when they can turn to medicine and science. And that's really where Hims comes in, being a one stop shop for hair loss, skincare and sexual wellness for men. Thanks to science, baldness can be optional and Hims makes that

• 1:30Harry Stebbings?

  even easier, connecting you with real world doctors and medical grade solutions to treat hair loss. No waiting room, just answer a few questions and you get the product shipped to your door. Even better though, listeners of 20 VC get a trial month of Hims for just $5 today, while supplies last. Go to forhims.com/20vc, that's F O R H I M S dot com forward slash 20 vc. Thanks to my friends at WePay though. Let's talk about another cool player in the space we love, TeamSnap. TeamSnap is a sports team management app that makes communication and organisation a breeze. Its millions of users enjoy such features as registration, scheduling, messaging and payments, and all of this is designed For a mobile-first population and you can learn more at teamsnap.com.

• 2:13Harry Stebbings?

  And to learn how you can grow your revenue with integrated payments like Teamsnap did, visit wepay.com/harry. In fact, WePay's got a great case study about how Teamsnap's working with WePay to make payments its number one revenue stream. Again, that's wepay.com/harry. And finally, if Hims can transform yourself, Terminal can transform your company. As we all know that hiring amazing developers is just really, really hard. It's much harder though if you're only looking within a 25-mile radius of your office. And that's where Terminal comes in. Terminal is your dedicated partner to rapidly standing up world-class remote technical teams. How do they deliver both speed and quality? Well, Terminal does this by focusing on everything necessary to successfully source, set up and support these teams. From physical elements like beautiful workspaces and equipment,

• 2:57Harry Stebbings?

  to ongoing resources like HR, payroll, legal, professional learning and development. But really, don't take my word for this. Take the word of Eventbrite, former 20 VC guest Hims, DialPad, all customers and lovers of Terminal. And you can find out more today at terminal.io. We've heard quite enough of these dulcet British tones. And so now I'm very, very excited to hand over to Laura Deming, founding partner at the Longevity Fund.

• 3:26Harry Stebbings?

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 3:29Harry Stebbings?

  Laura, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show today. Huge thanks to Daniel Gross for the intro, but thank you so much for joining me today, Laura.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks so much for having me on.

• 3:37Harry Stebbings?

  Not at all, I'm very excited for this. But let's start with, tell me Laura, how did you make your way into what I always call the wonderful world of venture capital?

• 3:45Speaker 02

  It was a bit of an unconventional story. So I was really interested in longevity and ways to make humans have longer, healthier lives since I was a kid. Actually, when I started the fund, I was at MIT. I was 16 at the time and I really wanted to be able to fund more scientists to do this work. And so I dropped out and moved to California and started what became Longevity VC now about seven years ago.

• 4:09Harry Stebbings?

  I thought I was a young fund manager. That is something else. Thank you for making me feel terribly unaccomplished. So early in the interview, I really appreciate that. Just start with a question, actually two questions, really.

• 4:20Harry Stebbings?

  From Daniel Gross, he said, and quite rightly so, first in terms of the passion around longevity, what really is longevity and what makes it so special?

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, so on longevity front, I remember, you know, when I was a kid and I first got interested in this subject, I went to my computer and I think it was one of the first cool searches I must have done called like aging science. And I think the fascinating thing is if I had done that kind of search and and science and the literature about a hundred years ago, nothing would have shown up. There was really very little work on aging and longevity. But the past three decades have resulted in massive advances. So we now know that it's possible to genetically control aging, that aging is malleable. And I think what's really fascinating is if you look across forty six different types of animals, you see huge differences in longevity. You know, we age, but many animals don't. Many animals, you know, have increased fertility and decreased mortality with time.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  And so there's a question, to what extent is our longevity fixed? And the fascinating fact in the past three decades has been you can change it, you can influence it. And it may be something that we're able to translate into drugs that people take in the next couple of decades.

• 5:25Harry Stebbings?

  Can I ask, was that a catalytic moment to you realizing your complete passion and love for longevity? And it being something you have to do, being an observation at a young age of one of these animals increasing performance over time? Or a certain book that you read? What was that catalytic moment, I have to ask?

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Well, I was generally interested in the topic, but I think if I had searched and kind of gotten to zero, I would have thrown out my hands and and walked out the door. There's no use trying to do science if there's no way to do the science that you want to do. But I think the fascinating fact was I I searched, you know, aging science and this page popped up by this woman called Cynthia Kenyon, talking about DAFT mutations in a tiny worm called C. elegans. And basically what it implied was, you know, that we're able to control aging and just modulate it. Like we can just decide how long we want certain worms to live and tune their parameters to fit that. And the only question was, well, can we do that in humans? And of course, it takes a lot longer to test that because our cycle of testing is kind of a lot longer and more expensive in humans. But just, I mean, to me, it was so obvious that if you knew that you could do this, well, gosh, I mean, that was the most interesting thing to work on in the world. If it were possible to do so.

• 6:24Harry Stebbings?

  I mean, indeed, I think you're absolutely right there. And I'm so pleased that Daniel asked some questions that I'll ask later on where I can. Clearly need your advice and aging help. I do want to structure the show today a little bit in terms of starting with the founders themselves, moving to the investment climate surrounding really the biotech and longevity space. And then finishing on some common concerns that's often cited on the show when investing in the space. How does that sound?

• 6:46Speaker 02

  That sounds great.

• 6:47Harry Stebbings?

  So on the founders themselves, we mentioned your youth there in the intro, but biotech founders are increasingly younger in age. So kicking off with this, where are young biotech founders found, so to speak? And maybe how does the sourcing for these founders fundamentally differ from maybe more consumer or B two B investing and sourcing with traditional venture?

• 7:06Speaker 02

  Yes, I think that's been one of the most surprising aspects of working in venture over the past couple of years was I used to think that young founders weren't really seen in the space much. And the problem there was funding wasn't available and the climate wasn't right. I think one of the funding to biotech venture capital has doubled over the past couple of years. And that's a huge fact, but the number of companies started has stayed fairly stable. And I and my colleagues are kind of sitting here, especially those coming from the more founder oriented funds, hungering for young founders to come pitch us. And we're really not seeing, I think, as high a degree of that as one might expect. And so I think the fascinating thing is, you know, I always assumed from the outside that biotech venture capital was really limited by dollars. And I think it used to be, but I think the fascinating fact is now it's all about talent.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  And just, you know, we're sitting here like, where is the talent? Where are all these young founders in biotech or just new company ideas? It doesn't have to be young founders. I think it's a lot less than I would have thought. I think it's a possible education issue.

• 8:01Harry Stebbings?

  Can I ask a subsequent question of why do you think there is maybe a drought or a lessening of young founders or a lack of availability of young founders? What are the reasons for this? Is this a kind of pipeline issue? Is this a societal issue towards longevity and biotech as kind of a career in itself? What do you think it is?

• 8:18Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's pretty straightforward in that if you go ask a typical sort of person graduating, say from a PhD program, what their next options are. You know, if that PhD program is in EE or CS, they all have a very clear and diverse set of options. They'll know they can start a company, go to Google or any number of variety of things. If you ask a bio PhD student, typically they'll say, oh, like, Might be able to go into industry or get a professorship, but they don't really consider entrepreneurship. And we actually sat down and chatted with over fifty grad students to kind of understand the mentality around this decision. And one of the interesting things from that was they all kind of, I think, assumed that it takes hundreds of millions of dollars to get a drug to market. And so they're just ineligible to go and develop drugs because they know that they can't raise that amount of financing right off the bat.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  And I think the kind of learning for them is, well, it does take a lot of money to develop a drug, but the amount of money you need to raise as a first pass is actually pretty small. Like most venture capital firms, when they're testing ideas internally, they raise on the order of five hundred K to a million dollars. And so I, I, I think it's really an education point that large amounts of capital are required in this space, but they're not all required upfront and you can't get started with less. And people are literally, you know, sitting around just hungry to give you that capital right now. And so there's, there's this opportunity that I think is kind of underseen by those that are a little bit more risk averse.

• 9:32Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right in terms of the misnomer of requiring hundreds of millions upfront. In terms of the, the founders that you do back and do have that kind of entrepreneurial in it, so to speak. I'm really interested, living in the Bay and seeing the wrath of also very successful consumer and more traditional founders that you have done. How do their mindsets differ and approaches maybe differ and personalities maybe differ? When comparing these two actually very differing sets of founders?

• 9:56Speaker 02

  Um, I think that biotech founders tend to be a lot more cautious and scientific. So I think one of the interesting things about consumer is you can run science live on large cohorts of people by kind of deploying multiple A B tests and then watching as a result stream in. And biotech, to get correct conditions and be able to compare things, sometimes it takes a bit longer. And so I think the expectations around timelines are vastly different. Not always necessarily correctly, but that's definitely the major point of difference that we've seen.

• 10:24Harry Stebbings?

  No, absolutely. Uh, timelines differ for sure. But if those are the founders that we look for in the space, I'd love to discuss maybe the investment landscape more itself. You said there about kind of the dollar sitting waiting to be deployed. In terms of kind of the strong headwinds in biotech, would you say you're very much seeing this kind of explosion of capital towards the space? And how do you view it currently?

• 10:45Speaker 02

  Oh, absolutely. I mean, I, I think biotech's really fascinating and that it's one of the Most important things you could possibly invest in, right? I think if you if you're considering the kind of NPV of a potential drug for Alzheimer's versus a consumer app, it'd be it'd be very hard to find consumer apps that have a higher NPV socially. And perhaps even from a market perspective, depending on how you weigh the probabilities. But I I think that they're they're kind of like waves of interest in biotech. And generally, what you see is, I think, people, especially general species, will kind of come in. Some or Alzheimer's or, you know, X where X is one of a variety of different subjects. All of our peers are interested in X. We've read articles in that much tech review that kind of centered around X. And we've seen like nature papers being published in this area, so we kind of generally feel that that's a good place to deploy capital. And so I think that can sometimes lead to kind of a lot of investment in X, where X was is exciting,

• 11:30Speaker 02

  but but probably won't pay off on quite the timelines that folks are assuming. And so I think we might be seeing that a little bit now where there there's kind of a lot of excitement around bio in general. And I think probably rightly so, but I just I think there might be a difference between the expected payoff timelines and kind of the actual payoff timelines for for for some part of that excitement. You know, one example would be immuno-oncology, which is the part of bio that's really worked well. Like, you know, this is the part of bio that's carrying patients and from which we see huge returns, was first really discovered in the 1990s. And it took decades of kind of these drugs muddling their way through acquisition through acquisition to kind of get to market. And so if you were an investor in like the 1990s, you know, you you might have made a completely correct scientific call, but this this would be the the space to, you know, double down on.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  But it would have taken a couple of decades and not even a kind of scientific work necessarily, but just kind of of kind of waiting for the drug to make its way through the process to see the returns on that. And so I'm curious, you know, now if there are ways to to change that process. But I think that the timelines in biotech are just quite fascinating that you can be so right on your thesis scientifically, completely accurate, but then due to kind of like unforeseen circumstances, wait decades to see the returns on that.

• 12:35Harry Stebbings?

  I mean, I I love that kind of thinking on market timing because it's the one risk that always makes me incredibly uncomfortable, whether it's in AR, VR, name your kind of frontier investing space. How do you then fundamentally think about market timing, given the sheer difficulty considering the macro in front of you?

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. So I actually think that's one of the reasons, and this is very counterintuitive to most people, but one of the reasons we chose to invest in longevity, I literally thought it was it was the least. Risky, most likely to work part biology in general, particularly the part biology that would be easy to test, easy to test in humans. And that's very counterintuitive to most people. Most people would assume that longevity is actually definitely the hardest place to invest, the most risky and the longest to invest in humans. And so I'll explain why we think that. You know, all the companies that we invest in have drugs that have worked not just in kind of mouse models of Alzheimer's typically, but also diabetes and heart disease and kind of typically the pathways we invest in have been tested in and work in almost every age-related disease pathology that they've been sort of looked at in context of.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  And so while most companies that go out there for one of these diseases have kind of like a single sort of pathway focused therapeutic, the therapies that we invest in and sort of work in all the diseases. And so they can also then be clinically tested in any one of the diseases. And so you have a much broader variety of indications to select from. You can pick the fastest ones. So I think we're actually optimized on speed to clinic and efficacy once in clinic. And then I think also the likelihood of them working, at least in my view, is probably higher, given that the pathways that they're working on are kind of general enough that they they sort of go across these modality and are able to cure multiple different aspects of aging as opposed to kind of just one specific, you know, say, like an AB body that that might be specific to like a mouse model induced by AB, but not necessarily translate to a human where the pathology is less clear.

• 14:14Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, no, absolutely. I do have to answer in terms of those starting days and choosing those options in the beginning. I spoke to quite a few biotech investors before the show. And when having the opportunity sat in front of them, a lot of them said, actually, the preference today, Harry, is the build internally and fund internally strategy. How do you think about the kind of more traditionalist biotech model of building internally large ownerships carrying throughout and pre-acquisition? How do you think about that? I had Peter Parker on the show from BioInnovation. He said it doesn't work. I know the team at Atlas are very much fans of it. How do you think about it?

• 14:47Speaker 02

  I mean, I think it's a great strategy. It's great for the VCs for certain parameters. I think the likelihood of success is slightly higher. The equity stakes are definitely higher. And there's a better pitch to LPs in the short term. My proprietary process for producing value, gosh, that isn't that better than talking about the kind of shared deal pool where I have to go to the well that all these other VCs are, you know, also going to and argue for my advantage based on how much founders like. I mean, gosh, isn't that a better story? But I think it somewhat loses track of where the value's been created in biotech historically, right? I mean, look at Bob Swanson. Sure, he came from Kleiner Perkins, but the guy was an entrepreneur to his soul. And I think one of the special things about Genentech was just how founder-driven that company was. There's a statue of Herb Boyer and Bob Swanson still in the patio of Genentech.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  You know, the two guys in metal kind of eternally, you know, in the patio of the company that he helped create. And then when you walk in for orientation there, that kind of focuses on the founders. And that's very different, I think, from a VC firm kind of selecting a few specific pathways and then pursuing those. I mean, you can argue the firms are trying to have that same founder focus to the degree that it's rational and that they're aware of kind of that issue. But I think there's a large difference between really appreciating the selection of a wonderful founder and going up from behind them. I think another fascinating fact about Genentech, right, is when they started off, there were a couple of things they said they'd never do. You know, I didn't think one of them was antibodies. No, that might even have been oncology. And now those are kind of, you know, the places where they're generating $6 billion per year in revenue per product. It's the places that they thought they'd never go into.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  But I think, you know, maybe sometimes focusing on the thesis of an investment can blind you to the fact that most of the value in biotech comes from the eventual trajectory of the company. It's unpredictable at the start, and that trajectory is absolutely driven by the founder. So I think one of the reasons that we're excited, both through longevity and through our accelerator H1 to back earlier-stage founders, is just having seen so many of the greatest companies, and even in our first portfolio, so many of the best outcomes be driven by kind of really unpredictable circumstances. But the founder's decision and resilience in the face of those. I think we're very excited about founders as kind of the core of a company's value. And I think much more so than the traditional kind of like asset-focused approach that I think is maybe rational, but not necessarily what we choose to focus on in biotech historically.

• 16:53Harry Stebbings?

  I couldn't agree with you in terms of that founder-centric thinking. But you did mention that pitching to the LPs and how it makes a strategic sense. I'm really, really interested. How was the LP fundraising process for you, presenting a very different presentation and thesis to, I'm sure, the majority of presentations and theses that they see? How was that process for you? Were there any really surprising elements?

• 17:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was definitely one of the most confusing and disorienting processes I've ever been through. I mean, for context, I had just dropped out of MIT. When I moved to the Valley, I was sixteen, maybe seventeen at the time. I'd never raised financing before. I had maybe a couple thousand dollars in my bank account and I didn't have any understanding of what the process should look like. And so the first two years for me were just this really confusing process of going. And, you know, I literally spent the first couple of months, like, you know, emailing the Forbes 400 Billionaire List because I thought that that was the best way. You know, sort of like, well, I guess I'll need billions of capital to do this. Who has billions of capital? Well, there's like a list of people who do and I'll just go talk to them. But it took a long time to understand that I think pitching your first fund is a lot more like pitching a company than it is a fund in its later stages.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  And your first investors are probably going to be angels and people who know you well and mentors and people just putting in small checks and that you have to raise your first fund, I think, around your deal flow. And so you have to generate a deal flow before you raise your first fund, which of course is kind of a chicken and egg problem. And I think actually most VCs never encounter this because they're starting off with funds that have a decade or so of storied history. And, you know, most people, almost everyone going into venture is joining a fund that already exists. And so there's not a lot of literature out there on how to kind of do it yourself. But I think the process for raising your first fund is a lot more like raising a seed round for a company than it is like any kind of mature venture fundraising process I've seen.

• 18:30Harry Stebbings?

  No, I couldn't agree more, having gone through it recently. I would love to ask, listening to you, there's this kind of unwavering determination of what can be done and what you have achieved over the last few years. Was there any doubt when you were a sixteen, seventeen year old coming to the Valley with a couple of thousand dollars that this wasn't going to work? Was it always kind of this unwavering belief that it would all work out?

• 18:51Speaker 02

  Well, it's kind of funny. I think that I'd been super lucky, even compared to most kids who want to get into science, and that the first email I'd ever sent when I was 12 to a scientist to work in their lab got kind of a brilliantly positive response to and ended up resulting in kind of a two-year lab stint. And so I think I had this kind of inherent assumption that like things have been too easy kind of so far and I was kind of due for a hard slog. And so I think part of the resilience through those years just came from kind of, well, I guess this is, you know, this is the hard part. Should have been expecting that. But yeah, I definitely think that raising your first fund, it's a pretty tough go, especially when you don't have much of a, you know, set of anecdotes to rely on that give you context for how long it should take or how hard it should be or even feedback on kind of what you're doing right or wrong during that process.

• 19:29Harry Stebbings?

  No, totally. I do agree there. In terms of kind of one interesting element I'd love to ask is, was there a breakthrough moment where suddenly the stars aligned and it looked like the sun was coming out to shine after the dark period? Was there that kind of catalytic moment where it came together, so to speak?

• 19:44Speaker 02

  Yes, so I remember it quite clearly. We had just found one of the first companies that we ever invested in, Unity Biotechnology, and we were really, really excited about them. And so I actually used that as the first deal that I discussed with LPs. And I remember it said the investors that we'd been talking to that were hanging around the hoop and saying, "Look, we found this company and it's amazing." Like, this is exactly what we've always wanted to invest in. And we showed them the data, we showed them what Ned was working on. And we said, "Here's an incredible founder, here's incredible science longevity, and we have to get in, we're just gonna do this deal. Even if we don't have any capital to do, we're gonna do the deal." And that was the first time that it clicked for people. I think when they saw kind of the concrete progress that was being made, that's when people decided, "Okay, well, we can really come in and do this."

• 20:27Speaker 02

  And I think before things got concrete, it's just a lot harder to make it clear. Because you know, I think if you're pitching, especially something like longevity, I mean, it's a very out there sounding thing. You know, it's the idea of making people live longer. That's been sold by people for many millennia as a dream, but not a concrete reality. And so it took a very, very wonderful story to kind of focus very focused.

• 20:45Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think they also love to really feel a tangible material towards the offering. And that kind of live actionable deal flow really is that. Before we move into the quickfire there, I do have to touch on a couple of elements of the mechanics on investing in space. And I'm sure probably a lot of the LPs are sees, so I'm sure you might have some incredibly finely tuned answers to these. But I am interested, and it's something that's often cited on the show. So with the new fund, how does one think about portfolio construction when investing in longevity? Obviously inherently more risky than, you know, investing in kind of scalable SaaS solutions. Does one have to have this widely diversified portfolio? And how do you think about that?

• 21:21Speaker 02

  I think that we have sixty to ninety different mechanisms internally of longevity that we track. And we really just try to, and it's pretty rare that we find amazing drugs with wonderful founders that fit any one of those pathways inherently. And so I think to some degree, we're pretty diversified across biological mechanism. And if you look at our portfolio, we have platform companies. So we're diversified across platform versus therapeutic. We're diversified across type of approach. We're diversified across the kind of general category of approach. I mean, we have, we have a immunology company in one portfolio and several others. You know, we're diversified across biological and cell molecule. So without even consciously Really pushing for it. We're diversified across almost every axis you could think of. Part of that is just, you know, the space is one where when you see an amazing asset, you just kind of have to invest because it's so rare to find all the stars aligning and the biology really determines that.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  And so I think, you know, we'd love to have, you know, I think eventually as the space grows, we'll probably think a lot more constructively about what exact proportions of a portfolio might be best allocated to different things. But right now, I think we're very opportunistic and that's just surprisingly and hilariously results in like complete diversification along every possible axis you can imagine.

• 22:21Harry Stebbings?

  Well, I mean, that's always a bonus when that happens serendipitously. But the other concerns that are often cited is kind of life cycle funding being a requirement from the original investors and then lack of downstream investors. So when investing in the space, how do you think about reserve allocation? You know, often people say there's uncertain milestones that needed to be hit, unlike maybe SaaS where it's a hundred K M R for an A round. How do you think about concentrating capital into the best companies and utilizing reserves effectively?

• 22:47Speaker 02

  I mean, I think we're really at early stage focused funds. So in our first fund, we didn't even expect to invest that much in subsequent rounds. We were really focused on the first rounds. We have some amount always allocated for follow on for each company. We think about the majority of the value coming from the first rounds. That's where we spend a lot of time. In terms of follow on capital, I think all of our investments have been with extremely strong co-investors where they have a proven track record of being able to both co-invest and support companies, you know, where they see the value, but also help bring in new capital when and where it's needed and then maybe new ways or new strategies. So I think some of our companies have benefited already from the public markets. Some are kind of exploring different options, but you know, I think we really look to our co-investors as wonderful sources of stabilization, especially as we grow in fund size. And so we just really strong select for amazing co-investors and try and help the companies that we're excited about raise

• 23:32Speaker 02

  from people that we really trust and respect.

• 23:34Harry Stebbings?

  I mean, the other element that's often cited there, and you kind of touched on it with the co-investor element, but everyone tells me that there's kind of fundamental lack of downstream investors within biotech. How do you think about that? And is that a fallacy and a myth or is it a truth and a concern?

• 23:48Speaker 02

  I mean, I'd say empirically for us, it's not been true. I think all of our companies that have wanted to have been able to attract full on capital and most times from kind of outside investors. And so I don't think we've seen that. I think if you haven't produced value in the first couple of years of the company, it might be hard to argue for full on capital. But I think we were Aware of just enormous numbers of people with multiple dollar funds, even kind of funds really large up there in size, who are looking to, you know, for the first time kind of move into biotech. And so we almost see an increase in the availability of full on capital. I think one question is, you know, for how long, right? There's always concern that if somebody's just moved into biotech, they could also just move out next year. And so I think we take that into account when evaluating financial syndicate partners. But I mean, I think that might be the case for some areas. Maybe there's some specific sectors that are experiencing that. We don't really see that in our companies and hope it continues.

• 24:32Harry Stebbings?

  Well, I'm sure it will continue, but I do want to finish today, Laura, with my favorite element of any interview being the quick fire round. So I say a short statement and you give me your immediate thoughts. About 60 seconds per one. How does that sound?

• 24:44Speaker 02

  Okay, sounds great.

• 24:45Harry Stebbings?

  So tell me, what's your favorite book and why?

• 24:47Speaker 02

  Probably the two books, Nabokov Notes from a Beheading and Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger. And they both deal with what it means to be in a book by some of the two best authors. I think those are good.

• 24:57Harry Stebbings?

  Love those suggestions and I haven't had either of them before. This one's from Daniel. What health hacks do you do? Harry needs help. Thanks, Daniel.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  So I was told to mention mint mojitos is a great, an espresso is a great.

• 25:09Harry Stebbings?

  He's really not a good friend, you know, I'm learning this fast.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  And no, I think a lot of things, my kicking after age 40, but just exercising, eating well, there's a limited, I don't want to recommend any, any medical things. I think, I think there's some evidence for, for certain therapeutics, but it's not solid enough that I recommend taking any of them.

• 25:28Harry Stebbings?

  I completely agree. I think, you know, your fiber day consumed entirely in mint from mojitos is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Tell me your most memorable LP meeting, Laura, and why?

• 25:37Speaker 02

  Most memorable? It's probably just the montage of all the LP meetings where there was kind of like a raised eyebrow, glossy gaze, and then a complete lack of focus in the subsequent 55 minutes. I mean, I think the most memorable might have been like the first time somebody said yes, where it was actually a mentor of mine that I was on the phone with, and then he just asked if he could invest. You know, still appreciate STEM Tam Kiwi for being one of the early people to believe in what we're doing. So, you know, I think really appreciate him.

• 26:00Harry Stebbings?

  Yeah, absolutely. What motto or saying do you most frequently revert back to and why?

• 26:04Speaker 02

  Action comes before motivation. I think it's one of the most powerful, underutilized facts about humans.

• 26:09Harry Stebbings?

  What would you most like to change in the world of ventures day? You've been in it now for a number of years. What would you like to change?

• 26:14Speaker 02

  I think the diversity of fun types, I think we've been artificially constrained by a perception that it's hard to raise a new structure of fun because LPs just kind of like amorphously won't like it. I think that's really cut down the value to be created by exploring different, different fun types.

• 26:28Harry Stebbings?

  What do you know now that you wish you'd known when you started your career in VC?

• 26:33Speaker 02

  It's possible to measure progress and iterate a lot faster than you might think, and it's really important to do that.

• 26:38Harry Stebbings?

  What are some interesting, and this is Daniel again, what are some interesting slash weird experiments you've run on yourself?

• 26:45Speaker 02

  I once tried eating only bacon for a month, and that was before I was vegetarian.

• 26:49Harry Stebbings?

  How did you feel?

• 26:50Speaker 02

  It was actually fine. I think it really expanded my thoughts on like what it's possible to physically do.

• 26:56Harry Stebbings?

  And then immediately after I became a vegetarian.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  Right, yeah, exactly.

• 27:01Harry Stebbings?

  And then tell me, the most recent publicly announced investment, Laura, and why did you say yes?

• 27:05Speaker 02

  Definitely. So we just had System One announce their round. We're super excited to be co-investing in them along with Pfizer Ventures and CRV. And we were just very excited about the potential for genetically distinct models of kind of the brains of patients going through right neurodores diseases. And we thought the founders were absolutely fantastic for that one.

• 27:23Harry Stebbings?

  Laura, as I said, I had so many wonderful things from Daniel. You continue to make me feel completely unaccomplished, and it really has been just the biggest pleasure to have you on the show. So thank you so much for joining me today.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  Thanks so much, Harry. Really appreciated it.

• 27:36Harry Stebbings?

  I told you, what an incredible guest and such an inspiring journey. And if you'd like to see more from Laura, then you can find her on Twitter at Laura Deming. I do also want to say again a big thank you to Daniel Gross for the intro and the fantastic question suggestions. Really appreciate your stitching me up there, my friend. But we'd love to see you behind the scenes here at the 20 Minute VC. You can do that on Instagram at H Stubbings 1996 with two Bs. It'd be great to see you there. But before we leave you today, I want to spend a little time on Hims, a new wellness brand for men. So 66% of men lose their hair by the age of 35. And what amazes me is why guys still turn to weird solutions when they can turn to medicine and science. And that's really where Hims comes in, being a one-stop shop for hair loss, skincare, and sexual wellness for

• 28:19Harry Stebbings?

  men. Thanks to science, baldness can be optional, and Hims makes that even easier. Connecting you with real world doctors and medical grade solutions to treat hair loss. No waiting room, just answer a few questions and you get the product shipped to your door. Even better though, listeners of 20VC get a trial month of Hims for just $5 today, while supplies last. Go to forhims.com/20vc, that's F-O-R-H-I-M-S.com/20vc. Thanks to my friends at WePay though, let's talk about another cool player in the space we love, TeamSnap. TeamSnap is a sports team management app that makes communication and organisation a breeze. Its millions of users enjoy such features as registration, scheduling, messaging and payments,

• 29:01Harry Stebbings?

  and all of this is designed for a mobile-first population. And you can learn more at teamsnap.com. And to learn how you can grow your revenue with integrated payments like TeamSnap did, visit wepay.com/harry. In fact, WePay's got a great case study about how TeamSnap's working with WePay to make payments its number one revenue stream. Again, that's wepay.com/harry. And finally, if Hims can transform yourself, Terminal can transform your company. As we all know that hiring amazing developers is just really, really hard. It's much harder though if you're only looking within a 25 mile radius of your office, and that's where Terminal comes in. Terminal is your dedicated partner to rapidly standing up world-class remote technical teams. How do they deliver both speed and quality? Well, Terminal does this by focusing on everything necessary to successfully source,

• 29:46Harry Stebbings?

  set up and support these teams. From physical elements like beautiful workspaces and equipment, to ongoing resources like HR, payroll, legal, professional learning and development. But really, don't take my word for this. Take the word of Eventbrite, former 20VC guest Hims, Dialpad, all customers and lovers of Terminal. And you can find out more today at terminal.io. As always, I so appreciate all your support and I cannot wait to bring you an exceptional episode with Tom Blomfield, founder and CEO at Monzo on Friday.