Psychedelics Replace Pot as the New Favorite Edgy Investment

Marijuana’s legal headway in recent years has paved the way for new interest in remedies typically relegated to the black market. Companies that work with drugs like psilocybin, an ingredient in magic mushrooms, or Ibogaine, used in ayahuasca ceremonies, are proliferating, with early-stage investors predicting such substances have an even better shot than cannabis at disrupting the $70 billion market for mental health. The question now is whether such aims bear out — and in time to catch up with all the money flowing in.

“People see this potentially as a get-rich-quick mechanism, just like you saw in the early stages of cannabis,” said Sa’ad Shah, who runs Grey House Partners GP Inc.’s Noetic Fund, which has invested in more than a dozen psychedelics companies. While Shah’s background is in asset management, he said lots of VCs in the psychedelics space have recently come from marijuana. “They feel they don’t want to have another FOMO situation here,” he said, referring to a “fear of missing out,” like they did with early-stage cannabis plays. [Read More @ Bloomberg]