Edifice, a Healthcare Disruptor spun out of Stanford, Raises $12 Million to Reinvent Immune Health, Improve Healthspan, and Change Course of Aging

SAN MATEO, Calif., April 22, 2021 – Edifice Health, a Silicon Valley emerging company in immunological health and personalized nutrition, today announced a $12 Million investment, led by Leaps by Bayer.

Through its highly-differentiated approach, Edifice aims to harness previously unattainable insights into the root causes of chronic diseases of aging, followed by delivering highly personalized interventions to improve inflammatory and immune health, and extend healthspan.

Globally, about 71% of annual deaths are attributable to non-communicable diseases of aging, which include cancer, cardiovascular diseases, Type II diabetes, neurodegenerative disorders, and depression. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 90% of the nation’s staggering $3.8 Trillion in annual heath care expenditures are attributable to chronic health conditions.

Wolfgang Daum, PhD, Edifice’s Chairman and CEO, and a serial life science entrepreneur, remarked that, to date, the absence of a measurable biomarker to detect the root cause of these non-communicable diseases has been the main barrier to quickly diagnosing and treating, and even preventing them, adversely impacting the healthspans of afflicted people.  His company, Edifice, intends to change that.

Edifice was born out of the Stanford 1,000 Immunomes’ Project (‘Stanford Project’), following the 10-year National Institute of Health-funded research in immunological health and aging at Stanford University. The company uses novel proteomic approaches and combines them with proprietary artificial intelligence and predictive analysis to measure the rate at which an individual’s body ages. Edifice has created a first-ever metric to measure systemic chronic inflammation, which, the Stanford Project research showed to be the root cause – and thus, the predictor – of multiple chronic diseases of aging. Furthermore, the company has identified interventional supplements, which can be highly targeted to an individual’s immunotype to improve inflammatory health and facilitate healthy aging.

Paladin Capital Group, Vertical Venture Partners, Ahren Innovation Capital, Ataraxia Capital Partners, Shanda Gran Ventures, Alafi Capital, and Taisho Pharmaceutical also participated in the round.

The investment will support the company to rapidly grow its solid foundation of immunological science and add additional talent eager to disrupt the industry. Leaps by Bayer’s Naveen Krishnan, MD, MPhil, and Paladin Group’s Paul Conley, PhD, will join Edifice’s Board of Directors, alongside Santosh Padki, a San Francisco-based consumer products veteran, and David Furman, PhD, Edifice Founder, Leader of the Stanford Project, and Associate Professor of Applied Artificial Intelligence in Systems and Computational Immunology of Aging at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.

“We are thrilled to be able to invest in this groundbreaking technology firmly rooted within our leap #10 to drive transformational digital business models and based on a very credible scientific foundation from Stanford which provides consumers with the first trackable biomarker for systemic chronic inflammation and safe supplements that can reduce inflammation, improve healthspan, and change the course of aging,” said Juergen Eckhardt, Head of Leaps by Bayer. Leaps by Bayer, the impact investment unit of Bayer AG, builds new companies and invests into solutions to some of today’s biggest challenges in health and agriculture.

Edifice will combine its inflammatory health technology with a consumer and market-centric product expected to launch next year. Future interventions to extend health spans would include pharmaceutical applications targeting specific disease states, partnering with various companies to dramatically scale Edifice’s mission of extending healthy aging through food, beverage and nutritional products.

The Scientific Advisory Board brings worldwide credibility in immunology, age-related diseases and Artificial Intelligence. Along with Prof. David Furman, they include Prof. Mark Davis, Director of the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection at Stanford University, Dr. Eric Verdin, CEO of Buck Institute for Research on Aging, Prof. Robert Tibshirani, Professor of Biomedical Data Science at Stanford University, and Dr. Lizellen La Follette, Obstetrician and Gynecologist and longtime advocate for longer healthspan.

Seed stage investors include Human Longevity and Performance Impact Venture Fund, Longevity Incubator Fund, Summer Venture Capital, Carlyle Global Advisors, M4 Capital GmbH, and Better Food Ventures.

About Edifice Health
Edifice Health is a digital health spin-out company from a 10-year Stanford research in human immunology offering a novel metric of inflammatory health.  The inflammatory health measure is then augmented with personalized health interventions to improve and extend healthspan. Edifice has solid underpinnings in immunological science and in AI-powered technology. It will combine these proprietary elements with a consumer and market-centric orientation to deliver on its mission in tackling chronic diseases worldwide. www.edificehealth.com

Contact
Asli Gozoren
VP Corporate Development, Edifice Health, Inc.
Media@EdificeHealth.com

Disclaimer

This press release does not constitute an offer of interests in any Ahren fund. Any offer of an Ahren fund will be made through separate offering documents and in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. This press release may contain forward looking statements. These statements include, but are not limited to, discussions related to Ahren’s expectations regarding the performance of its business, its liquidity and capital resources and the other statements contained herein. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management. When used in this press release, the words “believe,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Although management believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that these expectations will prove to have been correct. These statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Ahren gives no undertaking or assumes any obligation to publicly update or review any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

Ahren believes that selected case studies should be considered as a reflection of Ahren’s investment process, and references to these particular portfolio companies should not be considered as recommendations of any particular security, investment or portfolio company. The information provided about these portfolio companies is intended to be illustrative, and is not intended to be used as an indication of the current or future performance of the portfolio companies of the fund that Ahren manages.