A Tampa biotech company focusing on using psychedelics to treat addiction has secured a $2.5 million investment.
Psilera Bioscience announced the funding Thursday morning, which was led by Fort Lauderdale-based Iter Investments. Baird Inc., JLS Fund, Receptor, and What If Ventures also participated in the seed round, along with the company's founders and board of directors.
The funding was raised by issuing 4.3 million shares of series seed preferred shares at a cost basis of 57 cents per share. It will be used for new hires, to run pre-clinical trials and initiate FDA milestones.
The $2.5 million is a relatively small funding amount in the biotech space, which typically takes tens of millions for clinical trials and drug development. But the co-founders stated the company is in the early — and less-costly — stages of testing. They also both pointed to the hurdle to overcome the preconceived notions of psychedelics in the treatment field.
"You have to start somewhere; you have a lot of interest in the space, looking to grow strategically, and this allows us to do that," co-founder Dr. Chris Witowski said. "The psychedelics industry is in the early stages, so a lot of traditional [venture capital firms] are weighing the risks and stigmas. Right now, the VC community is fairly limited in the psychedelics industry, but this is the starting point and allows us to propel forward."
Witowski, along with co-founder and chief scientific officer Dr. Jackie von Salm, were both Ph.D. graduates in chemistry from the University of South Florida after growing up in Clearwater and Sarasota, respectively. The duo founded the company in 2019 and is part of the USF Connect incubator program. Witowski and von Salm are working on tweaking chemical entities — including non-hallucinogenic psychedelics — that will eventually treat addictions, with their first focus on alcoholism.
"There have been a lot of compounds already FDA approved that were similar to psychedelics; they're just not advertised that way," von Salm said. "It's interesting because they slipped under the radar and actively are actively available as FDA drugs, but when we emphasize MDMA or [other compounds], they're getting more attention. This is nothing new — it's exciting and amazing to be part of it — but I don't always understand the stigma associated with it."
The company has soon-to-be five employees, intending to have another full-time person added by the end of the year. Due to the partnership with USF, the company also employs four interns that are masters and Ph.D. students. Witowski and von Salm did not disclose when they would be actively raising a Series A round but said they are open to investor discussions. Those talks have become easier during and post-coronavirus, allowing investment firms worldwide to take part in conversations.
"We’re both Ph.D. scientists, and this is the first company we started, so it was a bit of a learning process [with fundraising]," Witowski said. "So having these meetings and raising capital electronically was a little odd, but a good amount of our capital came from Florida. While Tampa Bay itself is not a hub for biotech, it can grow that way, and we can support the local community. There is a lot of potential for our company and for psychedelics medicine."
