Why mention your gender?
How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co
121–130 of 251 posts
Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co
#122Is it typically possible for a first-time solo founder to raise this much seed capital without having a product in the lab or an MVP? Maybe having an insider’s view of how the VC world works helped her push the right buttons (and find the right connections), but I am not sure this advice will help the typical founder with no VC connections.
Anecdata, but I know a first-time solo female founder who has raised north of $4MM so yes it is possible.
I don't think it's actually super common, but feels like it's hard to not end up with millions when you raise (at least for ex-FAANG folks).
As far as I'm concerned - more money, more problems (and less equity).
Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co
#123>Loyal is developing drugs to extend dog lifespan and healthspan. Wow this is a huge undertaking. I wish you luck and I don't mean that sarcastically! If you can do that to a dog, it seems trivial to extend to humans. Have any drugs or supplements extended dog lifespan in the literature? Rapamycin I guess?
So far it doesn't look like Rapamycin will be very effective for human life extension.
Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co
#124>Loyal is developing drugs to extend dog lifespan and healthspan. Wow this is a huge undertaking. I wish you luck and I don't mean that sarcastically! If you can do that to a dog, it seems trivial to extend to humans. Have any drugs or supplements extended dog lifespan in the literature? Rapamycin I guess?
There are these too:
* https://www.rejuvenatebio.com/ (Gene therapy for mitral valve disease in dogs)
* https://dogagingproject.org/ (Involved rapamycin which is already known to increase lifespan in model organisms)
* https://www.vaika.org/ Reverse transcriptase inhibitors in dogs to increase healthspan/lifespan.
Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Trivial" might be underselling it. Increasing a dog's lifespan by 5 years is massively noticeable. I've never seen a 20-year old dog. Adding 5 to a human's health is beneficial but isn't nearly as noticeable. This is ignoring the magnitude of differences between dogs and humans. They're mammals, sure... I can't recall just how many "successful trial on rats" stories have we gotten on HN that have to be tempered by r…
pardon me but 5 years of my life doesn't seem un-noticeable or less noticable at all, and I would certainly notice it much more than for dogs (much as I love them)
I don't think you actually would. A large portion (probably the majority) of American adults could extend their lifespan by 5 years by making simple lifestyle changes. They opt not to.
Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co
#126>Loyal is developing drugs to extend dog lifespan and healthspan. Wow this is a huge undertaking. I wish you luck and I don't mean that sarcastically! If you can do that to a dog, it seems trivial to extend to humans. Have any drugs or supplements extended dog lifespan in the literature? Rapamycin I guess?
"Trivial" might be underselling it. Increasing a dog's lifespan by 5 years is massively noticeable. I've never seen a 20-year old dog. Adding 5 to a human's health is beneficial but isn't nearly as noticeable. This is ignoring the magnitude of differences between dogs and humans. They're mammals, sure... I can't recall just how many "successful trial on rats" stories have we gotten on HN that have to be tempered by r…
> I've never seen a 20-year old dog.
Little dogs can live to 20.
I met a woman in the park who said she had a dog like mine that lived to 20, then drowned in a swimming pool. I didn't know whether to offer congratulations or commiserations.
Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's all conjecture. If VCs get a sense that a male moonshot founder wants work life balance, for example, they are unlikely to invest. It's not about gender and discriminating on that kind of surface level. There are always exceptions of course, but it's not useful or reality based to extrapolate those into the rule. Some more stats to think about, which seem to avoid these kind of conspiracies about bias or patri…
Please don't take HN threads into generic gender flamewar. It's tedious and repetitive and inevitably nasty—not what this site is for. We want thoughtful, curious conversation about different things here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
Why is a defense of a sexist accusation considered a flamewar and flagged, but the accusation itself isn't?
Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Trivial" might be underselling it. Increasing a dog's lifespan by 5 years is massively noticeable. I've never seen a 20-year old dog. Adding 5 to a human's health is beneficial but isn't nearly as noticeable. This is ignoring the magnitude of differences between dogs and humans. They're mammals, sure... I can't recall just how many "successful trial on rats" stories have we gotten on HN that have to be tempered by r…
Adding 5 years to human life would be worth a trillion dollars. There are 1 billion people that would pay at least 1k for thst.
I'm curious about why the parent was downvoted.
Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co
#129> Loyal is developing drugs to extend dog lifespan and healthspan. I’d put us in the incipient consumer bio category.
Buddhism is developing acceptance of lifespan and appreciation of life in the present moment. It's in the peace of mind category.
Re: How I raised a $5.1M seed as a first-time, female, solo founder for a biotech co
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
> clone your dog when it passes away I love how the darkest dystopian outcomes for humanity are kinda just fine to try out on our pets. Here, Fido Ten, good boy!
Not sure why it's dystopian necessarily. I'd be interested in cloning myself if it was possible/legal/not cost prohibitive. I'm already signed up for a cryonics facility. But I have loved all of my dogs and would seriously think about cloning them if I had the money even to get an imperfect copy when they passed away.
If you loved all of your dogs, maybe you would have miss something if you kept cloning the first one ad vitam. Would you have preferred your second dog to be an imperfect copy of the first ?