Psychedelic Investor Pulse Survey

Q4 2022

In Summer 20221 we conducted our inaugural Psychedelic Investor Pulse Survey, publishing the results shortly thereafter. In Q4, we decided to again poll our community of psychedelic investors to see whether sentiment and investment intentions had changed. 

Below, we briefly present the results, focusing on any changes that have emerged between the two surveys. Readers who did not access our 40+ page analysis of the inaugural survey might benefit from doing so. There, we discuss each question in much greater detail.

Part of our Year in Review series

Introduction

Given that macroeconomic headwinds were already in full swing by summer 2022, it’s perhaps unsurprising that psychedelic investors have not demonstrated a great deal of change in their attitudes since our first survey in Q2.

Responses to our survey—which was advertised on two occasions via our newsletter and investment opportunities list—were up in Q4, with 2342 respondents. The survey once again sought to understand the investment activity, sentiment and forward-looking intentions of a diverse array of investors: from individual retail investors through to family offices, VCs and investment banks.

In order to allow for comparison between survey cohorts, we utilised an identical format and question set, adding just one new question in the Q4 survey: Are you looking to invest in the Oregon market? 

Below, we provide a brief overview of the findings, pointing out any notable differences between the Q4 responses and those from Q2.

Type of Investor

As with our Q2 survey, the vast majority of respondents in the Q4 survey were retail investors.

A not-insignificant portion of respondents were accredited investors3, with a third segment of respondents identified as institutional (or quasi-institutional) investors including corporate investors, investment banks, family offices and VCs. These latter two categories are slightly more prominent in the Q4 survey than in Q2, though it is not a significant change.

Amount of Capital Invested in Psychedelics in the Past Year

We asked our investor community to estimate how much capital they have deployed into the psychedelics space during the past 12 months. The self-explanatory results are displayed below:

Respondents in the Q4 survey were slightly more likely to have invested larger sums, reflecting the inclusion of a handful more institutional investors in this cohort.

Investment Route

Next, we asked investors how they deployed capital in the space: from the purchase of publicly-listed shares through to participation in private financings.

As is to be expected, private financings were more commonly the domain of accredited and institutional-type investors4.

Given the larger number of respondents from accredited and institutional classes of investors, it’s unsurprising to see more respondents from the Q4 survey investing via private financings and funds.

Investors’ Personal Experience with Psychedelics

A slightly larger portion of investors that responded to our Q4 2022 survey identified as having never used psychedelics (represented by 1 on the scale).

When we disaggregate the data by investor type, it’s apparent that this trend is driven by retail investors.

In fact, there was a large increase in the portion of accredited investors that have significant personal experience with psychedelics.

Attractiveness of Psychedelic Value Chain Segments

There were no significant changes in value chain segment attractiveness between the Q2 and Q4 survey respondents.

Drug Discovery and Development continued to be a consistently popular value chain segment, with three quarters of respondents finding it attractive. There is a mild increase in investor interest among more infrastructure-related investment segments such as therapist training, clinics and care delivery, and technology. This is unsurprising, as these topics have become more salient in the sector throughout the course of the past year.

This chart shows the value chain segments that investors deemed to be attractive in a simpler fashion:

Investor Sentiment

The next set of questions guage investors’ sentiment and forward-looking investment intentions.

General Sentiment

There is no major change in sentiment among psychedelic investors, but some subtle shifts.

Though a greater portion of investors reported 2, representing pessimistic sentiment, fewer reported the most negative sentiment, 1. The median sentiment shifted from 4 in Q2 to 3 in Q4.

Planned Allocation (Next 12 Months)

The majority of investors that responded to our Q4 survey intend to allocate either a similar amount or more capital to the space in the next twelve months than the prior.

Accredited and institutional-type investors demonstrate staying power, too, which is important as a large number of psychedelics companies are engaged in capital-intensive clinical trials.

The below chart, which maps investment plans for the next 12 months onto the respondent’s past 12 month allocation, again demonstrates staying power among larger cheque writers.

Note that, unlike other charts in this piece, the below chart does not show Q2 results, due to difficulties in normalising the data across the two cohorts.

Investment Horizons

Investment horizons remain almost entirely unchanged, with the vast majority of investors—across all types of investor—prepared to wait for at least one year to see a return on their investments; and still a majority are prepared to wait for over three years.

Sustainability of Current Interest in Psychedelics

Investors remained confident in the sustainability of current interest in psychedelics, with just a slight tempering of expectations in Q4.

When we disaggregate this data by investor type, no major changes between the two survey cohorts are found. Accredited investors gained slightly more conviction that the current levels of interest in psychedelics would be sustainable, while retail investors tempered expectations ever so slightly with a lesser proportion of such respondents assigning the most confident 5 score than in Q2.

What Are Investors Excited About?

As in our Q2 survey, responses that were related to Impact & Social Benefit and New & Effective Therapeutics were the most common.

Responses were not dissimilar to those seen in Q2, though Q4 saw a larger portion of investors excited about regulatory and legislative changes as compared to drug development and clinical trial readouts.

A number of responses to this question in Q4 required us to create two new categories:

Extra-clinical uses. Indicative quotes:

  • “Expanded availability of psychedelics for therapeutic and recreational uses”
  • “New breakthroughs, integration of traditional healing methods with contemporary needs and demands in human psychological and spiritual wellness”
  • “Open acknowledgement that benefits of responsible use extend beyond a few DSM categories.”
  • “nontherapeutic uses”

Novel discoveries and fundamental research. Indicative quotes:

  • “Ethnobotanical drug-discovery”
  • “Short duration psychedelics and non-hallucinogenic compounds”
  • “Science behind the meds”
  • “To see how these investments can help further the science.”

As reflected in the addition of a category for extra-clinical uses and the greater focus on legislative changes, a slightly larger portion of respondents in our Q4 survey were interested in pathways to revenue that sit outside of the ‘medical model’.

The new category of responses that focus on novel discoveries and fundamental research, or basic science, is also an interesting development; which may be a positive signal for researchers seeking funding.

What Are Investors Concerned About?

As in our Q2 investor survey, Regulatory & Legislative Barriers remain the primary concern among investors.

Given the challenging economic climate, responses to the Q4 survey represented a broader array of financial concerns, leading us to introduce two new categories: 


Dilution and fundraising. Indicative quotes:

  • “Psychedelics companies raising funds at these levels”
  • “Lack of institutional capital”
  • “Overall sector not receiving adequate financing”
  • “Follow on financing. Traditional investors not coming in.”
  • “Future financing risk”


Bankruptcy. Indicative quotes:

  • “Macroeconomic conditions wiping out good companies”
  • “Companies going bankrupt and not providing proper information to shareholders”
  • “Smaller companies giving up”
  • “Companies collapsing”
  • “The company going under”
  • “Future bankruptcies among public companies”
  • “…consolidation & bankruptcy throughout”

Taken together, responses that expressed concern around the financial viability of psychedelics companies were the second most common, after regulatory and legislative concerns.

Another new category we added in response to qualitative answers is:

Attitudes towards psychedelics. Indicative quotes:

  • “slow cultural acceptance”
  • “Public and treatment industry reception”
  • “public perception”
  • “Lack of public support”
  • “ongoing stigma”
  • “Confusion by the general public”
  • “Recreational market creating negative PR that hinders medical progress”
  • “Negative stigma”
  • “Negativity”
  • “Stigma”
  • “regulatory constraints and a public backlash from abuse”
  • “backlash due to overproliferation of ketamine clinics”

New Question: Investing in Oregon

In our Q4 survey, we asked investors whether they were looking to invest in the Oregon market.

The majority of respondents responded in the negative, with just one in eight institutional-type investors considering the new psilocybin market as an investment.

Part of our Year in Review series

This content is part of our 2022 Year in Review, which looks back at the past year through commentary and analysis, interviews and guest contributions.

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  1. We refer to this survey as the Q2 survey later in this section.
  2. In our Q2 survey, we had 183 respondents.
  3. Note that we asked respondents to identify within just one category of investor type, as opposed to ‘all that apply’. Note also that a subset of investors who identified only as individual/retail investors are likely to be accredited.
  4. The fact that a not-insignificant cohort of individual/retail investors declared their participation in private financings and funds confirms our suspicion, described in the preceding footnote, that a portion of investors who identified as retail are also accredited.