"Laura Huang, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, who studies why investors invest, said that as venture capital firms proliferate, each grows increasingly specialized. It would make sense, she said, that such firms would progress from women-led businesses to other categories once seen as risky or potentially reputation damaging.
“It was women for a while, and now it’s these lifestyle brands,” Dr. Huang said. “There’s this internal competitive pressure to find that diamond in the rough. So there’s this constant pressure for people to be looking at what’s that next thing that’s undervalued.”
Able is unwilling to invest in cannabis; its partners believe that the risks of taking the drug recreationally have been understated. But it is now an early-stage investor in two companies that are involved in research of psychedelic compounds for medical use, Compass Pathways and Atai Life Sciences.
“Most institutional funds can’t invest in areas like psychedelics,” Ms. Eilian said. “So there was this white space for somewhat untraditional funds like ourselves to be able to look at the category.”
Particularly because the psychoactive drug psilocybin was recently decriminalized in Denver and Oakland, Calif., it has started to look like a good bet."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/style/venture-capital-psychedelics.html
“It was women for a while, and now it’s these lifestyle brands,” Dr. Huang said. “There’s this internal competitive pressure to find that diamond in the rough. So there’s this constant pressure for people to be looking at what’s that next thing that’s undervalued.”
Able is unwilling to invest in cannabis; its partners believe that the risks of taking the drug recreationally have been understated. But it is now an early-stage investor in two companies that are involved in research of psychedelic compounds for medical use, Compass Pathways and Atai Life Sciences.
“Most institutional funds can’t invest in areas like psychedelics,” Ms. Eilian said. “So there was this white space for somewhat untraditional funds like ourselves to be able to look at the category.”
Particularly because the psychoactive drug psilocybin was recently decriminalized in Denver and Oakland, Calif., it has started to look like a good bet."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/style/venture-capital-psychedelics.html