Longevity Startup VitaDAO Raises $4.1m, Backed By Pfizer, Balaji Srinivasan

The web transformed life as we know it, allowing new ways of working, solving problems, and distributing currency. The same is true for scientific research, a field traditionally conducted in the ivory towers of universities and industry partners.

Decentralized science or DeSci emerged on the heels of a wave of citizen and “DIY” biology endeavors, as well as the decade-old open science movement, and is gaining momentum despite the recent chills in the crypto sector (there’s a whole track dedicated to DeSci at the upcoming SynBioBeta conference). One of the biggest online communities, VitaDAO, just closed a $4.1 million dollar funding round to advance their longevity research.

But what is a DAO, really? It’s a new way to collectively finance, govern, and share value on the blockchain. Most communities start off as online collectives, congregating through chat apps such as Discord, which was originally popularized by online gaming communities. Each DAO server contains channels for various working groups; within VitaDAO, for instance, there are Deal Flow and Communications working groups, among others. Think of it like Reddit forums on steroids.

Sarah Hamburg, writing for Future, described DeSci as “the intersection of two broader trends: 1) efforts within the scientific community to change how research is funded and knowledge is shared, and 2) efforts within the crypto-focused movement to shift ownership and value away from industry intermediaries… The resulting DeSci landscape is a mix of loosely connected DAOs. Some target specific aspects of scientific research, such as funding, peer review, access, incentives, and pace. ”

The VitaDAO raise comes from contributors including investor Balaji Srinivasan (former CTO of Coinbase, author of The Network State), who recently spoke about the decentralized science reformation on The DeSci Podcast, sharing, “When the centralized thing is ossified and it is unresponsive, you break the glass and you decentralize…that is what crypto is doing. It’s decentralizing that power, that verification of who has the authority to say what’s true, away from the government, away from the Federal Reserve, and now I would argue away from academia, and to the individual with their computer or their mobile phone who can run the calculations for themselves.”

Another contributor to the raise was Pfizer Ventures, the first instance of a pharma venture partner shaking hands with a DeSci organization. Pfizer representative Michael Baran, PhD, MBA (Executive Director and Partner, Pfizer Ventures) shared, “Pfizer has multiple partnering models to engage with biotech companies ranging from R&D collaboration to equity investment. Translating academic science into the biotech space is often referred to as the valley of death, as many projects fail to find sufficient funding to advance. Decentralized Science caught our attention as an emerging area to address the valley of death challenge. We are excited to not only invest in but also actively participate in VitaDAO to explore this novel model to advance early stage science.”

Because the investments are being made into a decentralized autonomous organization, they are voted on by the community. Pfizer Venture’s investment was voted on as part of VDP-58, which passed October 7th, 2022.

VitaDAO was started as an experiment in community-run research by Molecule, which announced their $12.7 million raise in June of 2022 (led by Northpond Ventures). Molecule hopes to turn science DAOs into a profitable business model, and has seeded several similar communities with different foci, including AthenaDAO, which takes aim at women’s health research, and ValleyDAO which is broadly interested in synthetic biology.

ValleyDAO, like many DAOs, embraces the theme of ‘building in public’, which sets a different tone than traditional biotech and pharma that often operate in a ‘closed-source’ manner. “ValleyDAO will be the first synbio organization enabling transparent allocation of funding, decision-making and licensing of research data and intellectual property,” said Albert Anis (core lead at ValleyDAO).

“I was not sold on the idea of crypto or NFTs being a revolution, but when I became involved with VitaDAO as a contributor I realized the potential of what could be achieved for research that does not get as much attention. Longevity is relatively well funded now compared to many years ago. Consider that Altos Labs, one of the largest privately funded biotech raises in recent years, is tackling this area,” said Laura Minquini (founder of AthenaDAO).

Another DeSci company called Vibe Bio was launched this past June with the mission to advance rare disease drug development through online communities. Vibe Bio CEO and co-founder, Alok Tayi, PhD, shared his excitement for the space, stating that “Novel medical and scientific solutions are being generated at an accelerating rate. DeSci enables a global, distributed pool of entrepreneurial talent to access capital, expertise, and tools to ensure their technologies reach and help patients.”

When asked what VitaDAO’s recent fundraise means for DeSci, Todd White (Operations Steward, VitaDAO) shared that, “having larger traditional players (whether pharma, or VCs) involved in the community is credibility building for both parties. I think sometimes there is a lack of trust in motivations between the two groups, and having a closer interaction I believe will open up more opportunities for building better tools and better science.”

Thank you to Jocelynn Pearl for additional research and reporting on this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta and some of the companies I write about (including VitaDAO and Vibe Bio) are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest.