Ready for prescribed mushrooms?
Small Steps Vol. 31: Using psychedelics to treat mental illness 💊 a chat with the ‘yoda’ of impact investing 💸 and will Bitcoin ever be green? 🌳
“Perfectionism is the belief that something is broken - you. So you dress up your brokenness with degrees, achievements, accolades, pieces of paper, none of which can fix what you think you are fixing.” -- Edith Eger, Psychologist.
What made us stop and think
🍄 We're inching closer to prescribed psychedelics. Atai Life Sciences, a Peter Thiel-backed startup that is developing psychedelic drugs to treat depression, anxiety, addiction and other mental health conditions, announced plans to raise $100 million in an IPO. They're following Compass Pathways, a biopharmaceutical company that patented the psychedelic compound psilocybin for use in treatment-resistant depression, that went public on the Nasdaq last September.
😍This podcast on impact investing and inclusive capitalism with Jacqueline Novogratz, the founder, and CEO of Acumen. Acumen manages funds investing incredibly patient (15+ years before a return) capital into emerging economy startups creating new markets and solving urgent problems like energy access. We were seriously impressed by Acumen's impact ROI - for every $1 they've invested into energy startups, they've provided energy access to 4 people.
💚 Globally, Bitcoin churns through as much electricity annually as the nation of Argentina. As the cryptocurrency trend continues to grow at pace, the underlying issues with Bitcoin - which is an inherently energy inefficient coin to mine - could hold-up global decarbonisation. While we're excited by the potential of blockchain technology to empower creators, we're watching for new solutions like renewably-powered mining or more energy efficient code.
💸 The Singapore government sovereign wealth fund, Temasek, is backing impact VC in APAC in a big way. They were just announced as part of Main Sequence's $250m raise, following their US$500m investment into Leap Frog (the largest ever single investment into an Impact VC fund).
Career pathways
👀 Full Cycle Bioplastics is on the hunt for a Recruiter.
💪 Work180 is chasing a Business Development Specialist.
👌 Sendle is looking for a remote Digital Marketing Manager.
👍 In addition to a Head of Marketing, Like Family is also seeking a Product Manager.
🔥 As always, there’s 30+ more jobs on the Giant Leap Fund jobs board and more jobs at ethical companies on the global B-Work job board.
Giant leaps
😎 Our Investment Manager, Rachel Yang, joined the Ignition Lane podcast to discuss impact investing and how everyone can make a difference. Here’s a quick wrap of her chat.
💤 Mindset Health’s founders Alex and Chris Naoumdis recently featured on a VatorNews podcast discussing hypnotherapy
💬 Sendle’s Eva Ross joined the CMO Show about building a sustainable brand. Check it out.
For the road
🚜 Perhaps COVID-19 has created an opportunity for innovation in AgTech that’s staring us in the face. There’s a shortage of workers on our farms due to COVID-19 closing our borders. Yet overseas, there’s massive investment in technology that’s automating farms enabling them to produce more with less human capital. Is this something we should be looking at?
🏙 For humanity to survive climate change, we’re going to have to make ourselves more scarce. And that’s where the idea of self-contained cities come into play.
🛏 Turns out sleep isn’t the only form of rest you need. You need mental, sensory, emotional, social, spiritual rest too. Have a look at this TedTalk guide to learn more. (Hat-tip to Judy Anderson from StartUpVic for the link.)
💥 A few pre-accelerators’ looking for candidates:
Barayamal is a program for First Nations people aiming to acquire the skills they need to build a scalable business. Applications close June 3.
Women in Climate and Energy Fellowship aims to help give women the skills they need to create their own energy startup. Applications close May 16.
👏 Love this LinkedIn post on coaching questions: