To be honest, I never really liked the name, “All About Agetech.”
“Age” is a demographic category after all, and is always sensitive, often bound up with stereotypes and clichés. Fintech and Proptech, for example, refer to segments being improved or fixed with technology. Why did I even call it that then? Convenience and vanity.
Let’s start with the issue of convenience. A label for an investment category is convenient in so many ways. In the first instance, it helps with group investment themes and creates visibility for a brand. When I launched “All About Agetech,” I wanted to address the gaps I saw in the space. There are not enough actual investments happening on the ground, and there is not nearly enough interest shown by founders.
This seemed all the more surprising to me, given not only the massive business opportunity that demographic change represents, but also the pressing issues that need to be addressed, and are only set to get worse. Our seniors already face health issues, loneliness and financial uncertainty.
Indeed, my column was never intended to be only about problems; rather, it was aimed at showcasing startups that offered solutions. From the get-go, the column celebrated founders innovating for the “Good Life”, and it’s this style of life that I feel truly passionate about.
There are many examples of those leading by example with the aim of the “Good Life”. For example, I previously featured the Japanese company WHILL, the inspirational creators of supercool wheelchairs. Or Koite Health, a medically developed new system for gum health that simultaneously has a positive longevity impact on the whole body.
Founders wishing to retire want fair value for the company they built, but many also want it to pass down to someone trustworthy and dedicated to building it up for the future. I also wrote about novel funds and platforms supporting generational transfer in the US, Japan and Europe. Moreover, sustainability matters for the “Good Life,” too, and this is where my recent column about the Japanese art of forest bathing and the importance of healthy, resilient and biodiverse forests is useful.
This is all important stuff, and it’s very convenient to call it “agetech.” Yet, I was already overusing the convenient “agetech” definition and adopting it for similar topic areas.
Longevity and sustainability are equally intertwined with the Good Life. All three themes overlap strongly, and this is certainly present in my previous columns. Gum health is something all of us need to monitor, not just the elderly. And healthy forests are beneficial to the wider ecosystem, not only the Japanophile nature lover. As we already know, innovation occurs through interdisciplinary skills and by looking beyond the conventional.
This is true in a personal sense, too. As some of you know, through my consumer fund, GMPVC and as an angel investor, I have invested for over fifteen years into startups innovating for the Good Life. Agetech is one pillar of our investment strategy, but we invest in longevity, too. I am deeply involved in regenerative agriculture, biodiversity and climate change as the co-founder of the peatland startup ZukunftMoor and a small angel investor in the sustainable fertiliser company Cascadia Seaweed, which partners with Indigenous communities on Canada’s west coast.
Maybe I knew all of this already when I called my column “All About Agetech.” One of my first columns already reflected my doubts. Maybe I was too swayed by vanity, by the need to rank higher in an organic online search and by trying to be the go-to source for that one category.
These revelations emerged successively over time. When they all came together, it was clear. A new name was going to be required. A name that was less restrictive, more encompassing, and allowed for innovative, out-of-the-box thinking. I wanted something that captured more meaning than a trendy label, and centred around the long term, resilience and interconnectedness. Something that most people wouldn’t immediately recognise.
Then I stumbled upon a curious deep-sea creature… black coral.
Revered by Pacific cultures and the longest living organism on earth, living for thousands of years, it’s a deep-sea coral that creates irreplaceable structural habitats consisting of fish, molluscs and a whole lot more. Most crucially, it thrives in communities, but is at the same time vulnerable, especially to deep-sea trawling, and needs to be protected.
Here’s a fun fact: Black coral is not itself black when alive, but is vibrantly colourful. In fact, its exoskeleton is black.
The timescales associated with black corals are mind-blowing. A single Black coral colony off the coast of Hawaii has been filtering water and sheltering marine life for a long time, even predating the Roman Empire. Importantly, though, timescales are also what link agetech, longevity and sustainability.
What’s the link between demographic change, ageing and planetary change? All three are slow-moving. But like a grinding glacier, the power of these changes is immense, and almost irreversible if not addressed with the same steady, long-term hand as the change itself.
Startups providing long-term solutions in different areas, agetech, longevity and sustainability, face similar challenges. For one, innovation takes longer to demonstrate, more funding might be required, and new KPIs need to be developed. For consumers, long-term habits need to be formed. It’s not easy, but cracking it is hugely rewarding.
Thus, many startups in these overlapping areas are concerned with what Richard Thaler, who was awarded the Nobel prize for behavioural economics in 2017, called “investment goods.” These are goods such as exercise, diet or savings, where costs are born immediately, but the benefits are delayed.
So, to come to a progressive close, Farewell, “All About Agetech,” and welcome the “Black Coral Club.” Renaming was the right move. By being broader, this column will be both more relevant to me, and I hope to you, too, startup investors and founders.
Change your perspective to the very long term and join me at the Black Coral Club.