The Week’s Largest Closed Equity Transaction:

• On January 24, 2023,  Journey Clinical (Private), a psychedelic medicine infrastructure company,  completed an $8.5M Series A funding.
  • Union Square Ventures was the lead investor, with participation by AlleyCorp, Able Partners, Colibri, Coalition Partners, Gaingels, Fifty Years, Palo Santo, PsyMed Ventures, Satori Capital, and individual investors.
  • Journey’s telehealth platform allows therapists to verify patient eligibility, track outcomes, and monitor for adverse effects.
  • The company’s offering center on Ketamine therapy but will be broadened to psilocybin and MDMA after regulatory approval.
  • The psychedelic sector has raised nearly $400M in the LTM that ended 1/27/23, up over 900% from the previous year. Viridian Capital divides the cannabis/CBD/psychedelics world into 12 subsectors, and psychedelics is the only one that has raised more capital in the current LTM period compared to the prior year’s LTM.

• Another Interesting Equity Raise: the rise of the distressed asset consolidators
  • On January 23, 2023, Talarya Brands, a company formed by PE firm D4 in January 2022 through the merger of California brands Cream of the Crop and West Coast Trading, raised $6M in equity funding.
  • D4 and Talarya are now funded to acquire distressed assets, including cultivation assets in Northern California or opportunities in other more established markets, including Colorado and Washington.
  • Talarya looks to employ best practices and new technologies from other industries to improve the profitability of acquired assets.
  • The group is an early mover in what we believe will be 2023’s key theme – the consolidation of distressed assets.           

Public vs. Private Raises: 

• Four of this week’s eight capital-raising companies are public. Two trade in Canada on the CSE, and three trade in the U.S. (two on OTC and one on Nasdaq).

Equity vs. Debt Cap Raises: 

• Equity accounted for seven of this week’s eight capital raises and 45% of the funds raised.