Loyal For Dogs Raises $27 Million In Series A Funding

San Francisco, US: “Loyal For Dogs”, a San Francisco business, is reinventing the concept of longevity, beginning with man’s best friend. The company raised $27 million in Series A fundraising headed by Khosla Ventures. 

Earlier in 2020, the organization raised $11 Million. Since its inception in 2019 by founder and CEO Celine Halioua, the company has raised $38 million to date. Celine highlights her 50% female investors grouping as a means of elevating more women in deep tech and longevity. 

She hails from a mixed family and studied neurology at The University of Texas before moving on to The Longevity Fund as chief of staff and entrepreneur-in-residence.

The worldwide anti-aging medicine market was worth almost $8 billion in 2020 and is expected to more than double by 2027. Though Botox is well known in the cosmetics industry for its ability to smooth out wrinkles, Halioua says that researching on aging has helped her realize the importance of preventative medicine for age-related mental disorders like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

The company’s concept is that by attempting to increase the healthspan and lifespan of dogs, it will learn more about how to accomplish the same in humans. According to Halioua, a dog’s lifespan is equal to that of a human due to proximity – dogs share environmental elements, occasionally eat the same diet, and can suffer the same aging disorders as humans, such as cardiac difficulties and cancer.

Loyal is researching treatments aimed at prolonging both the lifespan and healthspan of dogs, leveraging companion dog citizen science studies of over 500 dogs to better understand canine aging and eventually parlaying that R&D into goods intended for people.

The company has grown from a 3-person team to a 30-person company in the last year. The new funding will help the company to scale and focus on expanding their computation biology team and focus on the following products: 

• The first product is going to help increase the lifespan of large breed dogs.
• And the second one is aimed at improving their cognitive function.

Both of these will enter clinical trials next year with the hopes of receiving FDA approval, according to Halioua. After demonstrating that its treatments accomplish what they claim to do — help dogs live longer, healthier lives — Loyal will focus on developing a consumer brand that is direct-to-consumer, selling directly to both vets and pet parents.

According to the American Pet Products Association, American pet spending will reach nearly $100 billion in 2020, up from $95.7 billion in 2019.

According to Alexander Morgan, M.D. Ph.D., partner at Khosla Ventures, the pet industry is dynamic and large enough that if “Loyal For Dogs” merely focused its energies there, it could establish a significant, lucrative business. Many research on human diseases is conducted on dogs since they are a suitable model for human health. However, determining whether the medicine is genuinely beneficial is difficult, he warned.

Source: Tech Crunch