NeoGenesis Capital announces first close of a fund built around Colossal Biosciences

TLDR

• NeoGenesis Capital, from Peter Diamandis and Yianni Psaltis, announced a first close on its debut fund on 14 October.¹²
• The fund size was not disclosed; it invests in one platform, Colossal Biosciences and companies built on it.¹³
• Diamandis backed Colossal in 2021; in July it was reportedly in talks to raise at $20-30 billion.⁴⁵

NeoGenesis Capital, a venture firm founded by XPRIZE founder Peter Diamandis and Yianni Psaltis, announced its launch and the initial closing of its first fund on 14 October 2026.¹ TechCrunch reported the launch the same day, alongside Colossal's announcement of GenoMorph, an AI platform that helps identify genes to edit in de-extinction projects.² The firm's press release gives no fund size or amount raised at the initial close, and Pulse 2.0 reports that neither was disclosed.³ Diamandis followed with a newsletter post on 15 October 2026, which says the firm has held its initial closing and is not soliciting investors publicly.⁴

The mandate is narrow by design. NeoGenesis invests in Colossal Biosciences and in companies built on or gestated out of its platform, across longevity, fertility, agriculture, environmental remediation and AI-native genetic design.¹ Diamandis describes this as a deliberate choice to "go deep on a single platform rather than spread small bets across the whole field".⁴ Psaltis, who holds a doctorate in cancer biology, is managing partner, and Oliver Trevena, a co-founder of the drinks brand Caliwater, joins as head of culture.¹³

Colossal, founded by Ben Lamm and the Harvard geneticist George Church, is the existing relationship: Diamandis says he wrote one of its first cheques in 2021.¹ TechCrunch put Colossal's valuation at $10.2 billion and reported in July, citing Axios, that it was in talks to raise at $20 billion to $30 billion, with no lead investor or amount identified.⁵ The same report lists three Colossal spin-outs: Breaking, which works on breaking down plastics; Form Bio, a computational biology platform that has raised $30 million; and Astromech, an AI modelling company valued at $2 billion in March.⁵ The founders disclose that they hold a financial interest in NeoGenesis, that Diamandis is also a Colossal investor, and that Colossal and Lamm hold no ownership or financial interest in the firm.⁴

Why it matters: a fund that concentrates on a single company's ecosystem ties its returns to Colossal's platform, so the test is whether spin-outs such as Breaking and Astromech can carry the thesis, and without a disclosed fund size outsiders cannot yet judge how large that bet is.