When Bryan Johnson, the poster boy of Silicon Valley’s obsession with biohacking, co-founded his longevity-focused passion project Blueprint in 2021, he didn’t expect it to be the one thing he was trying to avoid: “A pain in my a—.”
At least, that’s what he posted on X in July.
It appears Johnson is working on turning his passion project into a bigger company. In early November, he announced Blueprint raised $60 million in angel funding from a star-studded handful of Silicon Valley and entertainment’s most notorious personalities. This includes Balaji Srinivasan, Paris Hilton, Steve Aoki, and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.
Gyre Renwick, former president of Modern Health and executive at Google and Lyft Inc., was named the chief executive of Blueprint. The company is also hiring for several executive and engineering roles.
“We will be your home for health,” Johnson said in a LinkedIn post. “Blueprint will help you feel clear-headed and vibrant. You will become more jacked and beautiful with our presence in your life. There’s nothing better than feeling your best.”
The financing signals Blueprint’s expansion from an e-commerce company into something bigger. The company is interested in creating a new standard certification for food “purity” and clinics that have access to bleeding edge longevity technologies and medical testing.
‘Best longevity stack’
This is a far cry from what Blueprint has operated as for the last few years: an e-commerce company selling Blueprint branded supplements, shampoos, protein powders and olive oils – the last of which costs $35 per bottle.
The company was started out of Johnson’s focus on reaching the most optimal biomarkers possible and buying consumables that would help him get there. After trying out off-the-shelf products, juggling more than 100 vendors and finding ingredients that he considered unhealthy, he decided to build his own brand.
“Blueprint is the best longevity stack in the world,” he said. “That’s not an exaggeration. It’s meticulously designed. Based upon scientific evidence. Third-party tested. Comprehensive, easy to consume, delicious and priced to be accessible.”
But Johnson’s notoriety overtook his mission. For one, his expensive olive oil went viral. A Netflix documentary, titled “Don’t Die” and released in January, focused on his granular health protocol that eschewed conventional scientific wisdom, and the New York Times investigated Blueprint’s confidentiality agreements. Allegations of Johnson being a grifter intensified, and Johnson decided Blueprint was hurting – not helping – his goal of evangelizing his protocol and philosophy for living a longer, healthier life.
“Somehow making my protocol available at a low cost lessened the trust that some people had in me,” he said.
