#63 - Psychedelic Focused VC: The Conscious Fund with Richard Skaife
Stigma Podcast - Mental Health
Release Date: 08/12/2020
#92 - Jane Technologies Founder Soc Rosenfeld on the Future of Cannabis Retail Tech
Stigma Podcast - Mental Health
What is the future of legal cannabis from a retail / e-commerce perspective? Today's guest, Socrates Rosenfeld, Co-Founder and CEO of Jane Technologies explains. Jane is an e-commerce solution for the Cannabis space that supports nearly 3,000 dispensaries and handles more than 20% of the legal Cannabis transactions in the U.S. each year.
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#91 - Modern Health Co-Founder and CEO Alyson Watson
Stigma Podcast - Mental Health
Alyson Watson is CEO and co-founder of Modern Health, a mental health unicorn! Modern Health is a global mental health benefits solution for employers that covers the spectrum of mental wellbeing needs from tech enabled solutions to professional support solutions on one platform.
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#90 - Spring Health CEO April Koh - On Building a Mental Health Unicorn
Stigma Podcast - Mental Health
April Koh is the youngest female founder to ever take a startup from just an idea to unicorn status. We are so excited that she’s accomplished this in the mental health space, and we are excited for you to meet her and learn more about her Company, Spring Health! For those who may not be familiar, Spring Health is a provider of mental health benefits to employers for their employees, and their employees’ families.
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#89 - The Future of Precision Psychiatry with Dr. Amit Etkin of Alto Neuroscience
Stigma Podcast - Mental Health
Dr. Amit Etkin is pioneering a revolution in the way mental health medications are designed, developed, prescribed, and brought to market. Precision psychiatry is the future of mental health treatment and Dr. Etkin is leading the way with his drug development platform, Alto Neuroscience. In this episode, Dr. Etkin explains why psychiatric drugs have failed, what he is doing about it and why it will work.
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#88 - _able Partners Founding Partner Amanda Eilian - A Pioneer in Mental Health Investing
Stigma Podcast - Mental Health
Amanda Eilian, Founding Partner of _able Partners joins us to talk all things mental health startup investing. _able Partners is an early-stage VC firm supporting visionary founders in the positive living space. Their investments focus on companies that improve the daily lives of people, making them healthier, happier, and making their lives more meaningful. Some specific investment areas include mental health, addiction, women’s health, sexual wellness, & coaching among others.
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#87 - Brain Computer Interfaces - A Primer with John Donoghue
Stigma Podcast - Mental Health
Today’s guest is John Donoghue. He is well known for his groundbreaking work developing Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) to restore movement for people with paralysis, known as ‘BrainGate’. BrainGate was the original BCI system created by a company called Cyberkinetics, of which John was a co-founder.
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#86 - Elyse Cohen - VP Social Impact at Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez
Stigma Podcast - Mental Health
Today’s guest is Elyse Cohen, VP of Social Impact and Inclusion at Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez. Elyse is an expert on purpose driven brands, social impact, and has been hand selected by Selena Gomez to lead the impact efforts at Rare Beauty. Previously Elyse worked at the White House for First Lady Michelle Obama as Deputy Director of the Let’s Move effort. She has worked on social impact and policy initiatives at the Public Health Institute and in a variety of other social impact roles.
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#85 - Measuring Mental Health with Ksana Health Co-Founder Nick Allen
Stigma Podcast - Mental Health
You can’t fix what you don’t measure. Measurement and testing of our mental health lags the same capabilities in physical health care. Dr. Nick Allen, our guest today, is building a mental health measurement solution for clinical use. Today we talk to him about the challenges, and opportunity for his startup, Ksana Health.
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#84 - Veterans Mental Health with Dr. Anthony Hassan, CEO of Cohen Veterans Network
Stigma Podcast - Mental Health
Dr. Anthony Hassan, President and CEO of the Cohen Veterans Network (CVN) joins us today. CVN is a network of 25 non-profit mental health clinics providing care to veterans and their families. The facilities are located in or around historically dense veteran and active duty military communities.
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#83 - Psychedelic Treatment Cured My Alcohol Addiction - Jon Kostakopoulos
Stigma Podcast - Mental Health
Jon Kostakopoulos was the first study participant in the NYU Psilocybin clinical trial. After years of struggling with alcoholism and after trying other options including in-patient programs, out-patient programs, AA, and pharmaceutical treatments, nothing was working for him. Finally, at age 25, Jon joined the clinical trial and underwent three different Psilocybin treatment sessions and has not craved alcohol since his first treatment session.
info_outlineToday’s guest is Richard Skaife. Richard is Founder of the Conscious Fund which invests in early stage startups pioneering plant powered medicine with a focus on psychedelics. To date, they have invested in startups such as ATAI Life Sciences, Bexson Biomedical, Cybin, Gilgamesh, Hive, Microdose, Numinus and more.
Richard talks about how he found his way into VC, and gives a great summary of the psychedelic startup ecosystem including an overview of the current regulatory environment.
Connect with Richard: Richard on Twitter, Conscious Fund on Twitter, Richard on LinkedIn
Other Links Mentioned: 1961 U.N. Drug Convention, https://maps.org/, Psychedelic Industry Job Board
HERE ARE SOME OF THE THINGS WE TALKED ABOUT:
- Richard talks about his path to VC and how he ended up starting a plant-based medicine focused venture fund (the Conscious Fund). We talked about why he is drawn to the mental health space and specifically the psychedelics space.
- The Conscious Fund likes to invest in the earliest stages and looks for founders who have a true alignment with the psychedelic medicine space. They also participate all the way up to series-B as well.
- We walked through the regulatory landscape around psychedelics, why they are illegal, and we went all the way back to the 1961 U.N. Drug Convention. We talked about how we got to where we are legally, and where we are going from a regulatory perspective in this space.
- The amount of information around efficacy and safety is extensive and we’ve had a lot of that information for many decades and is now being resurfaced.
- We talked about the size of the startup market in the psychedelic medicine space. There are probably 140 to 160 companies in the space and there are more entering every day. WE talked about ancillary business opportunities outside of the compounds themselves as well.
- Richard explained where the white space in the industry is today. He talked about medical conditions that are not being serviced by other psychedelic medicine companies in areas such as joint pain or specific addictions, etc. He also talked about how wide the ancillary services market is for tech creation.
- The Conscious Fund launched a jobs board for the entire psychedelic space as well. Link here: https://theconscious.fund/psychedelic-industry-jobs/
- We talked about the efficacy levels of psychedelics versus other treatments for things like mental health differences and addiction.
Connect with the Stigma Podcast in the following ways: Patreon, Website, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Email
Connect with host Stephen Hays here: Stephen Hays Personal Website, Twitter, LinkedIn, What If Ventures, Mental Health Rolling Fund, Rolling Fund FAQ