Portrait No. 001
Iris Lam
Founder and CEO
Rejoovenate Bio
I started Rejoovenate because of my own life, not a market opportunity. I spent years training as a scientist, earning a PhD in cell biology and immunology, assuming fertility was something I could think about later. But when I began my own fertility journey in my mid thirties, I came face to face with how few real options women actually have. Outside of freezing eggs earlier or going through repeated IVF cycles, there was nothing that truly addressed the root cause of reproductive aging. At the same time, I watched billions pour into longevity research to extend how long we live, while women’s healthspan remained fundamentally capped by menopause. That disconnect felt deeply unfair and scientifically solvable. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I went back to the lab and funded the first experiments myself. When the early results showed promise, it stopped being a personal frustration and became a mission. That is how Rejoovenate was born.
In her words
“I envision a world where the timeline of life is no longer dictated by the timeline of the ovary.”
Chapter I
The toughest challenges you've faced as a founder.
Building Rejoovenate has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, personally and professionally. I started the company alone, without a safety net, funding the first experiments myself while finishing my PhD and navigating my own fertility journey at the same time. I was new to the US, new to Silicon Valley, and had no investor network. Most rooms I walked into, I was the only woman and often the only immigrant founder, pitching a problem many people simply did not understand or take seriously. Fertility and menopause are still seen as “niche,” even though they affect half the population. I’ve had investors dismiss it as a lifestyle issue or suggest women should just freeze eggs earlier. Hearing that while living the reality myself was brutal, but it also made me more stubborn. So I got resourceful. I built the science myself, stretched every dollar, cold emailed clinicians, and assembled advisors and clinic partners from scratch. We generated proof of concept data, filed a provisional patent, secured a fertility clinic collaborator, won pitch competitions, and began raising our first round. Every step has been uphill. But if this were easy, someone would have fixed it already.
Chapter II
Your vision.
I am obsessed with one question: why is women’s life trajectory still dictated by a biological clock we have simply accepted as inevitable? So many life decisions are shaped by ovarian aging. Who you date. When you take career risks. Whether you move cities. Whether you start a company. Half the population plans their lives around decline. What frustrates me most is that we treat this as fate, not biology. Meanwhile we are extending lifespan, reversing disease, and investing billions into longevity for everything except the organ system that most directly limits women’s healthspan. The change I want is simple but profound. I want women to have time. Time to build careers. Time to find the right partner. Time to start families when they are ready, not rushed. If we can decouple fertility from age, even by a few years, it reshapes millions of lives. Rejoovenate exists to give women that time back.
Chapter III
The impact you want to leave behind — for your industry, your community, and the women who come next.
Thirty years from now, I hope young women don’t plan their lives around panic. I hope they don’t feel the quiet countdown in their twenties, or rush relationships, careers, or motherhood because of biology. I want reproductive aging to feel manageable, not inevitable. If Rejoovenate succeeds, fertility care will shift from damage control to prevention and restoration. Clinics will actually improve egg quality, not just work around decline. But more than anything, I hope we changed the narrative that women just have to accept this. If a future generation has more time, more choice, and more control over their bodies, that is the legacy I will be proud of.