Editor's note: This year we honored some of the brightest young minds in the Bay Area innovation sector as part of our Inno Under 25 feature. Check out all the profiles from this year's honorees here.
At the age of 22, Alina Su had already invented a medical device that enables needle-free injections, founded a biotech startup, graduated from UC Berkeley, and started a Ph.D. program at Harvard Medical School. She was working with Irina Conboy and George Church, scientists renowned in their fields. But she wanted more. Two years ago, she made the decision to leave Harvard and come to San Francisco to pursue a second startup, this one focused on longevity.
GenerationLab subscribers submit blood samples to the company four times a year. The company then tests the samples and suggests specific supplements, medicines and foods based on the results. According to Su, now 24, GenerationLab’s technology can detect health problems that conventional medicine overlooks.
Why did you decide to drop out of your Ph.D. program?
That was a very big moment. I was calculating that every single human being only has 30,000 days in their life. Do you want to spend 30,000 days in the lab, or do you want to use these 30,000 days to build a great product so that after you die, you’re still living? My choice is the latter.
What was your fundraising strategy?
Even before we got (an) offer (from Y Combinator), we had a lot of investors reaching out. This is my second time doing a venture-backed startup. It’s my co-founder’s fifth startup and his second venture-backed startup, and his last company was also a YC company — it’s a billion-dollar unicorn called Standard Cognition. So we both have a lot of connections with investors.
Our first round was backed by the LP of Initialized, the co-founder of Sequoia China, and the co-founders of Singularity Network and 640 Oxford.
What’s next?
We’re aiming to let everyone extend their healthspan and take control of their health. Aging is the only disease that’s impacting every single person in the world right now. So what we're aiming to do is to slow down the development of disease, slow down the development of aging, and at the same time letting you take charge of that.
About Alina
- Age: 24
- Education: UC Berkeley
- Residence: San Francisco
- Role: Founder
- Company: GenerationLab
