Google Co-founder Sergey Brin made a $366 million windfall by selling all of his You’re here He already invested in stocks in 2021. He is now using some of the funds to back a startup researching a hallucinogenic mental health treatment derived from an African shrub.
Brin’s nonprofit Catalyst4 is contributing $15 million of a $25 million funding round to biotech startup Soneira, The Financial Times reportedciting several people briefed on the discussions.
The company is reportedly launching clinical trials to determine whether ibogaine, a psychedelic compound found in the roots of the African Iboga shrub, could be used as a treatment for traumatic brain injuries (TBI) caused by sports injuries, car accidents and combat experiences.
The shrub has long been used by Central African tribes in spiritual rituals because of its psychotropic effects, but ibogaine has also recently been tested as a means of treat addiction and depression.
Brin’s investment comes as a new generation of health and psychedelics-related startups has emerged increasingly popular with investors. In 2020, another tech mogul, Pay Pal Peter Thiel, the company’s co-founder and venture capitalist, invested in Atai Life Sciences, a German biopharmaceutical company that is also studying ibogaine as a treatment for opioid addiction. Venture capitalists poured a record $528 million into psychedelic biotech startups in 2021, and about $180 million has been invested so far this year, according to PitchBook data.
Some Silicon Valley insiders have also begun taking small doses of psychedelics like psilocybin and LSD recreationally, seeking mental clarity or creative thinking.
In 2021, Brin sold his entire stake in Tesla after CEO Elon Musk allegedly engaged in a brief affair with Brin’s then-wife Nicole Shanahan, whom he later divorced, the wall street journal reported in 2022. Musk has previously denied the affair.
The stock sale netted Brin hundreds of millions of dollars, partly from a Investment of $500,000 Brin founded Tesla in 2008, when the company was in financial trouble. He used the funds to create the nonprofit Catalyst4, whose mission is to “support advances in the treatment of neurological (central nervous system) diseases and disorders and in efforts to mitigate and reverse the effects of climate change.” Bloomberg reportedciting IRS records.
Soneira, the psychedelics startup, is testing whether combining ibogaine with heart medications could mitigate the risk of deadly cardiac arrhythmias, a potential side effect of the hallucinogen. The company is also trying to develop a synthetic version of the compound, FT reported, citing people briefed on the discussions.
