Fifty Years is an entrepreneur-run early stage venture fund based in San Francisco, California focused on investing in technology companies. Fifty Years funds companies which are attempting to solve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, with a focus on synthetic biology and food technology companies. Fifty Years VC focuses primarily on seed stage investments into companies with built products and some market validation.
The fund was founded by Seth Bannon and Ela Madej in 2016, and formed its name from a famous essay "Fifty Years Hence" written by Winston Churchill in 1932.
Notable companies Fifty Years VC has invested in include: Geltor, Memphis Meats, Starsky Robotics, Astranis, and Cofactor Genomics.
In July 2019, Fifty Years VC announced they raised $50 million for their second fund. The fund will be used to invest in companies employing technology to improve food supply, healthcare and other areas with global impacts.
Fifty Years VC produces and supports Impact.Tech, which is an event series for scientists, entrepreneurs and investors focused on solving problems through business.
Timeline
Funded Companies
A telemedicine service company that delivers oral contraceptives and various testing kits to its customers. It was founded in 2015 and has headquarters in San Francisco, California.
A diagnostic DNA testing company using quantified biological data.
Company making cultured meat based in San Francisco founded by Uma Valeti, Nicholas Genovese and Will Clem.
Seattle Food Tech is a food manufacturing technology and production company producing plant-based meats. They make plant-based food and plant-based chicken nuggets.
Geltor is a cellular agriculture company making essential proteins, such as collagen and gelatin, using microbes in their own bio-fermentation recombinant protein production facility.
Astranis is a satellite communications company building small telecommunication satellites founded in 2015 by John Gedmark.
Bloom API is a healthcare company focused on communication practices.
An industrial biotech company developing a commercial bioprocess for manufacturing bio-based malonic acid.
Avro is a life sciences company, located in Canada and founded in 2016 by Shakir Lakhani and Keean Waterloo, Ontario, that makes skin patches capable of delivering generic drugs.
A company using RNA to diagnose disease and to develop biomarkers that predict treatment outcomes. Cofactor is founded by Jarret Glasscock.
A company developing blood testing device that utilizes deep learning and computer vision.
A speciality chemical manufacturing company replacing petroleum-based chemicals with alternatives made from plant-based substitutes.
64-x is a biotechnology company using genetic engineering to create organisms capable of performing biomanufacturing, bioremediation, and improve human health.
DNA synthesis company using enzymatic DNA synthesis based in San Francisco.
Boundary Layer Technologies is a company building hydrofoil cargo ships.
Brave Care is a pediatric urgent care clinic in Portland, Oregon founded in 2017 by Darius A Monsef IV.
Atom Computing Inc. manufactures scalable quantum computers out of individual atoms.
A company building robots to automate experiments of life scientists
A a biotechnology company developing a drug-screening platform for the acceleration of drug discovery by combining custom laboratory assay and proprietary machine learning algorithms.
Microverse is a company that provides online education for software developers. It was founded in 2017 and is located in San Francisco, California.
Mylk Guys is a vegan grocery online store that delivers in San Francisco Bay Area. It participated in the S18 cohort of Y Combinator.
A company developing smart contact lenses for monitoring glucose level in diabetic patients.
People
Ela Madej
Partner & Founder
Katariina Helaniemi
Operations at Impact.tech
Richard Chen
Investor
Seth Bannon
Partner & Founder
Shuo Yang
Principal
Further reading
Chafing Against Regulation, Silicon Valley Pivots to Pandemic
Andrew Leonard
Web
April 15, 2020
Climate change isn't going anywhere, and investment could soon rise - Marketplace
Molly Wood
Web
June 9, 2020
Deep tech VCs on what they view as some of the most impactful young startups right now
Connie Loizos
Web
January 18, 2020
Fake-meat startups rake in cash amid food supply worries - BNN Bloomberg
Larissa Zimberoff
Web
May 1, 2020
Fifty Years — The new Silicon Valley VC that wants to save the world AND make money
Mike Butcher
Oct 3, 2016
Fifty Years Offers Unusual Funding to Its Startups Tackling Coronavirus
Tomio Geron
Web
March 26, 2020
Fifty Years Raises Second Fund Focused on Biotech Startups
Heather Mack
Web
July 1, 2019
Fifty Years' $50 million fund signals tech's turn toward impact | ImpactAlpha
David Bank
Web
July 2, 2019
Meet The Forbes Under 30 Founders Leading The Next Billion-Dollar Startups
Alexandra Wilson
Web
May 28, 2020
Silicon Valley is throwing money behind Covid-19 efforts, hoping for results
Shannon Liao, CNN Business
Web
May 27, 2020
Taking risks on 'impact tech' to make exponential progress toward the global goals (video) | ImpactAlpha
David Bank
Web
October 31, 2019
Tech mobilization around COVID starts to show results | ImpactAlpha
Dennis Price
Web
April 8, 2020
Tech Startups Ask Workers to Trade In Salary for Stock
Shelly Banjo
Web
April 17, 2020
Documentaries, videos and podcasts
Danny In The Valley - Fifty Years' Seth Bannon: "Passing the Mr. Burns test"
Jan 24, 2020
Danny In The Valley: Fifty Years' Seth Bannon: "When a bear chases you into a tree, how do you get down?" on Apple Podcasts
March 25, 2020
Seth Bannon, Founding Partner at Fifty Years on How Science Startups Build the Future | Ausha
May 6, 2020
Companies
References
Company attributes
Venture Capital Firm attributes
Categories
Related Topics
Contributors
- 1
Alex Mieszczak
Executive assistant at Fifty Years. - 2
Aleksander Holm
Interested in understanding the world we live in. - 3
Kata Helaniemi
Life enthusiast intrigued about impact+tech. Supporting entrepreneurs using technology to solve the world's biggest problems. - 4
Dawson Sewell
Writing about startups. - 5
Jude Gomila
Founder and CEO of Golden, Entrepreneur. Investor in 200+ companies. Cantabrigian (Gonville and Caius). Interested in the Universe. - 6
Melanie Manipula
Helping organize knowledge. - 7
Jason D. Rowley
Data Acquisition Lead @ Golden (Recursion Inc.). Former startup and VC-focused data journalist and emerging technology researcher. - 8
Neelam Jhaveri
Techno Geek + Gamer + Fashionista + Sense of Humor = It's ME - 9
Tianchang He
Stanford EE MS, interested in machine learning, front-end and all things tech. - 10
Carla Faraguna
Golden People and Operations.
