Stephen Johnston's blog
They say that if exercise was a pill, it’d be worth trillions of dollars. Its benefits on physical (and mental) health are remarkable. If there’s an equivalent killer app for loneliness, it may well be communal cooking lessons. In reality, the multi-faceted benefits stemming from Diaspo, a fast-moving UK startup that offers intergenerational virtual cooking […]
Impact investing is growing fast. According to the latest numbers by trade body GIIN, impact investments globally amount to around $500bn. However not much is focused on ageing. In a similar fashion to foundations in the US, where just 2% of funding is focused on older adults, very few impact investing categories include aging. The […]
Happily, there are now more people looking to invest in the age-tech space, though it’s still a surprisingly small list, including Link-age Ventures, Third Act Ventures and Generator Ventures in the US, and Mediterranean Towers, Mangrove Capital (sort of) and 4GenVentures (fundraising) in Europe. This is a welcome sign of capital being convinced this market […]
As a student at Cambridge University in 1785, Thomas Clarkson entered an essay competition, in Latin, on the subject of slavery. His contribution not only won the prize, but, enthused him, and others such as William Wilberforce to devote his life to the topic. When subsequently translated into English, it helped propel the nascent abolitionist […]
Over the past few years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of start-ups focused on ‘healthy ageing’. Since 2012, when I co-founded Aging2.0[i], we have hosted over 500 start-up pitch events across 65 chapters[ii] in 20 countries and are now tracking over 3000 companies globally. Most tend to focus on their breakthrough […]