Most longevity capital attempts to answer the same question: how do we extend life? The more consequential question remains unasked: what will people do with the extra time they have? The numbers reflect this problem. In 2024, global investment in the sector reached $8.5 bn, with a primary focus on the biology of ageing: cellular reprogramming, drug discovery, diagnostics, biohacking. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg; the industry’s fundamental problem is that its focus is too narrow, both in aging societies and in younger economies like India.
This is a design failure that impacts individuals, healthcare systems and society at large, especially as countries age. The Silver Generation, those aged 50 and above who are willing and able to work, is a unique market worth investing in. Rather than only focusing on anxieties about living longer, another investment avenue exists in building products and services that support individuals in this crucial phase of their lives.
Biohacking has captured cultural imagination as the primary vehicle for longevity, and is framed as an elite endeavour. The recent boom in wellness clubs, hyperbaric oxygen chambers, competition over smoothies, and ice baths has come to be equated with living longer and better, without thinking about how this plays out in culture and society at scale.
Longevity industry’s missing piece
The real focus area, which is largely unaddressed, is the millions of ordinary people who want to live better, not just longer. To many investors, targeting younger consumers remains an aspirational market, and building for 65-year-olds, however commercially rational, is rarely where ambitious founders want to plant their flag.
This trend is seen in investment decisions across the longevity ecosystem. According to the Annual Longevity Investment Report (2024), employment platforms, and workforce participation tools rarely feature in the longevity space. Instead a bigger focus is on discovery ($2.65bn), cells ($1.6bn), genetics ($1.1bn), and even pet longevity ($160m). These, while useful, fail to factor in other determinants of living longer.
Employment platforms, purpose infrastructure, and workforce participation tools for experienced older workers do not appear anywhere in the taxonomy, not as a category, not as a subcategory, not as a line item. While this may be because employment and workforce participation may show up in other categories like corporate HR, Software as a Service (SAAS), or even in direct to consumer applications, it is evident that the longevity world may not even be viewing workforce participation as core to the sector.
The assumption embedded in this investment thesis is that biological extension is the problem to solve, and that meaning, contribution, and social connection will somehow follow. I would argue that they will not happen automatically, and not without the correct infrastructure. Clinical interventions alone do not extend human lifespan. Instead, the factors that actually predict longevity, i.e. social connection, purpose, continued contribution, are precisely what the longevity industry is not building for. Parts of South India show what this future could possibly look like.
Also read: India’s silver economy is booming—app, startups, part-time ‘daughters’, dementia centres
Work gap after retirement
WisdomCircle sits at the intersection of many of these trends by connecting experienced professionals to flexible opportunities and has gathered perhaps the most granular data available on how older workers and retirees are actually thinking about their later years. The picture that emerges is not one of people seeking to disengage. It is one of people being failed by the systems designed to hold them.
A survey of professionals aged 50 to 80 across India found that approximately two-thirds of respondents are either working or actively exploring opportunities post-retirement. Nearly half said professional engagement was what they looked forward to most, above travel, education, spirituality, and volunteering, and three-fifths reported feeling fully prepared to adapt to new roles. The aspiration, the energy, and the capability are present. The institutions to absorb them are not.
Most soon to be retirees receive no organisational support during the transition to retirement, even though such support is crucial for retaining institutional knowledge and keeping experienced workers engaged. On WisdomCircle’s platform alone, there is currently one available opportunity for every 40 professionals seeking one. This gap between the work place and the world of retirement unlocks another area of investment and opportunity.
Business opportunity in the silver economy
Solving the participation problem for experienced older workers does not just give individuals meaning. It cascades through every system already under pressure from the demographic shift. Social isolation and loss of purpose are directly linked to worse health outcomes. The WHO Commission on Social Connection (2025) found that spending little time interacting with others is associated with up to 871,000 premature deaths annually and a heightened risk of stroke, heart disease, diabetes, and cognitive decline. The fiscal and social logic is clear: by keeping people engaged and contributing to the workforce, you delay the point at which they become expensive to treat.
The opportunity cost of not doing so is significant. India’s silver economy is already valued at $8.7 billion, and the aforementioned survey shows nearly half of experienced professionals rank continued engagement above travel, spirituality, and education as a way to stay motivated. Given that this demographic has both spending power and a willingness to engage — provided they have products and platforms that recognise them — this exclusion is both a design failure and a missed business opportunity. China’s silver economy is already worth around $1 trillion, spanning housing, electronics, travel, and education. This growing segment has also been recognised as a policy priority by the Chinese government by rolling out public-private partnerships in health insurance.
We are investing billions to extend human life without thinking about how to add structure and meaning to it. The data already shows us what people want: to contribute, to stay connected, to remain useful. The science of living longer is advancing rapidly, but the architecture of living differently has barely begun.
Vibhav Mariwala is Senior Policy Advisor at WisdomCircle, an AgeTech platform connecting experienced professionals with organisations globally. He tweets @VibhavMariwala. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant Dixit)