This Berlin company is pioneering a chilling new €50-a-month cryogenics subscription

Ziegler, a US tech firm worker based in Berlin, has signed up with Tomorrow Biostasis, a startup in the German capital that offers to cryogenically freeze a person’s body after they die.

When the time comes, a team of medics will pump her full of a chemical solution to stop ice crystals from forming in her body and then transport her mortal remains to a storage facility in Switzerland.

The hope is that one day, medical technology might be advanced enough to bring her back to life. Many experts dismiss this gamble on the future as far-fetched, but Ziegler has decided to give it a shot.

“I’m kind of curious to see what the future would be like and, in general, I like life,” said the Californian, who works in educational technology.

“So if I could buy myself more time, that sounds really appealing.”

Once a fringe pursuit reserved for eccentric billionaires, cryogenic freezing — also known as cryonics — has become more accessible in recent years.

Several companies offering cryopreservation have sprung up in the United States and elsewhere, with around 500 people worldwide thought to have been frozen so far.

A persistent myth has it that Walt Disney, the creator of Mickey Mouse, is one of them, but this has been debunked, with BBC reporting in 2019 there is “zero evidence” for this.

Tomorrow Biostasis, founded in 2020, is thought to be the first such company offering the service in Europe. It offers to freeze your body after you die and store it for a membership fee of 50 euros a month.

A lump-sum payment of 200,000 euros ($216,000) — or 75,000 euros if you opt to have just your brain frozen — is also due at the time of death, a cost that can be covered by a life insurance payout.

Liquid nitrogen

“One of the main goals of this company is to bring the cost down… so that cryopreservation becomes available to whoever chooses to do it,” said Emil Kendziorra, one of the co-founders of Tomorrow Biostasis.

Kendziorra, 38, from the western German city of Darmstadt, studied medicine and originally worked in cancer research but said he became frustrated with the slow pace of developments in the field.

“The one big advantage of cryopreservation is that it is something that you can do right now,” he said.

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