New York's Horizons Psychedelic Conference Highlights Big Donations In The Growing Industry

Venture capitalist and businessman Stephen Jurvetson is joining an expanding group of prominent investors who are backing research into psychedelic ventures.

Last week, Jurvetson spoke at the New York City conference “Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics” on the topic of funding psychedelic companies. Having a reputation for investing early in pioneering businesses like Tesla TSLA and SpaceX SPCE, Bloomberg reported that Jurvetson has decided to put nearly half of his net worth into funding psychedelic science.

On A Mission To Improve Mental Health

During a panel titled “Catalytic Funding,” Jurvetson and his fellow panelists discussed the many opportunities in the psychedelics industry and the very real prospect of reinventing mental health.

“If I’ve learned anything from Tesla, it’s that mission-driven businesses are better to invest in,” said Jurvetson, a former Tesla board member. He added that one of the key drivers of such mission-driven companies is bringing together devoted employees who are willing to work hard.

The panel included discussions around hybrids of charitable giving and investing. Panelists also looked at the capability of businesses to take advantage of new changes to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s rules that have increased crowdfunding's upper limits to $75 million.

Jurvetson decided to fund psychedelics after a fair amount of experience investing in the field. He was an early stakeholder in Atai Life Sciences ATAI, a startup with 10 psychedelic programs in the works and that count Peter Thiel as one of its primary investors. Jurvetson has also invested in Osmind Inc., a software solution for practitioners of legal psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Vital Role Of Philanthropy In Psychedelics

During the funding session at Horizon, Joe Green, co-founder and president of the Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative (PSFC), also spoke about his work raising contributions for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).

In 2020, PSFC completed a $30 million fundraising campaign in partnership with MAPS to support the completion of their phase III clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to treat PTSD.

“It’s probably mission creep for psychedelics to fully revolutionize capitalism,” Green said. “Maybe…we’ll see.”

MAPS has been the fortunate recipient of donations over its 35-year history receiving charitable contributions from an array of philanthropic investors, including GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons, David Bronner of Dr. Bronner's Soaps and co-founder of WordPress Matt Mullenweg.

During the New York Horizons conference, MAPS announced a significant new windfall. The venture capital fund Vine Ventures recently created a $70 million special purpose vehicle to fund MAPS' Phase 3 clinical trials of MDMA. The novel funding process is intended to keep MAPS a nonprofit while letting it maintain control of its intellectual property.  

“This space could become dominated by companies whose primary obligation is to shareholders,” said Amy Emerson, CEO of MAPS. “Let’s not do that. That’s why we’re all here.”