In a televised pitch competition hosted by Tim Draper, entrepreneur Victoria presents her biotech startup’s plan to mass‑produce psychedelic compounds (psilocybin, DMT, 5‑MeO‑DMT) using engineered microorganisms in 2‑liter bioreactors. She reports a 20‑fold increase in psilocybin yield and highlights that the FDA has granted breakthrough therapy designation and a fast‑track approval pathway, projecting market entry within 12 months if an additional $1 M is raised. The go‑to‑market strategy is vertically integrated: a clinician‑facing software platform will collect treatment data and feed future drug discovery, while distribution will be doctor‑prescribed to clinics or state‑regulated distributors. Victoria underscores the urgent mental‑health crisis—suicide rates surpassing war and natural disasters—and positions psychedelic‑assisted therapy as a rapid, neuroplasticity‑enhancing solution for depression, addiction, and eating disorders. The pitch also touches on branding and market‑entry risks, drawing parallels to the early medical‑cannabis industry. The segment interleaves the business presentation with a light‑hearted “air‑squat” challenge that determines the competition’s winner.
Chapters
We have done amazing progress. Thank you, Tim. We did a 20x on our psilocybin yield.
Will you be able to sell your psilocybin 12 months from now in the US?
Yes.
Wow. Proud.
Welcome to the 4th challenge. We are now on the longevity floor. You have a combination of practical and theoretical challenges ahead of you.
The air squat phase of the challenge. You go down.
Oh my.
And you jump. I love it. Each team will do as many air squats as it can do in 1 minute.
Well, I'm still feeling the squat challenge, you know. I tried to do perfect squats.
I said like, okay, 60 seconds of squats. When I got to 30, okay, Victoria, you're on TV. Don't die. Let's go! I'm so sore still. I'm really sore.
And the main part of the challenge: a billionaire wants to maximally extend the longevity. You need to pitch this billionaire for health now, for biohacking, and for longevity for the future.
Good morning. The squats got me all messed up.
I'm not a biomedical hacker thing, so I was operating out of pure ignorance.
Three minutes go.
Aging—it's what brings more.
The best solutions already live within us, so our strategy is to go for something that has been proven.
In order to get strong, live longer, you need to sleep well, you need to gain muscle. A slightly riskier route because we think you need to take risks to get high reward.
Thanks for the great pitches. We disagreed a bit, but ultimately we put together our scores, which Adam will present.
Team 1, 24, and Team 2, 23 points. However, we still have the results of the Air Squad Challenge.
We recounted the jumps on the camera.
Team 1 reported 296. And Team 2, 261. But upon recount, Team 1 was found to have done 234, and Team 2, 238. No way! Which means Team 2 is the winner with 27 points.
Congratulations, Team 2!
The judges, they saw this as just a game. They didn't know the stakes.
So we didn't specifically ask for a recount. I think what happened was people just didn't keep track enough.
We, we did give it our all, and we were honest, by the way, about how many we actually did.
I can't believe I get the chance to keep on speaking about this on TV, to lower stigma, to push people to speak more about mental health. Today, more people die from suicide than war, terrorism, and natural disasters combined. For 30 years, We haven't seen improvements in mental health treatments. 40% of the people are treatment resistant and 75% quit. Luckily, effective treatments like psychedelic-assisted therapy with psilocybin are changing people's lives in just 1 or 2 sessions, enhancing their brain's neuroplasticity. The FDA designated this therapy for depression to be a breakthrough therapy, and just a month ago, they announced a fast track for approval 12 months from now. The science is ready, but the supply is not. Today, no one can combine pharma-grade IP, scale, precision, and access all together. But with biotechnology, we can do this. From Latin America to the world, we engineered our own microorganisms with biosynthesis and bioinformatics to produce psilocybin, DMT, and 5-MeO-DMT at scale. Since our investment, we have done amazing progress. Thank you, Tim. We did a 20x on our psilocybin yield.
Will you be able to sell your psilocybin 12 months from now in the US?
Yes. Wow.
Well, that's exciting.
If we raise one more million.
Will it be doctor prescribed or will it be on the shelf?
It will be doctor prescribed and directly to clinics or distributors, depending on the states.
How are you gonna focus on your market?
We are designing a software right now that is a tool for psychiatrists and psychologists.
What gives us the confidence that psilocybin will solve this problem?
Regular antidepressants Antidepressants act curating the symptoms. What people feel under a psilocybin dose is more avenues of solutions for their problems. This is why this is used not just for depression, but also for alcohol addiction, eating disorders.
What are the side effects of psilocybin versus— I know the traditional side effects of antidepressants could be feeling numb or like you're not yourself.
Psilocybin does not hit the reward system, so you don't get addicted. In fact, when you do a macrodose of psilocybin, it's not like you want to do it again, like, the next week. Your brain is working a lot and you can feel a little headache.
Have you used it yourself? What's kind of— how'd you get into this?
I did use it myself and I've seen amazing progress in terms of anxiety, in terms of creativity, and in terms of being grateful for the little things in life. Well, my mother suffered from depression many years. She's here. She felt better, but she also quit smoking. One day she suddenly wake up and said, I don't want to smoke anymore. My body doesn't need this.
Hey, your mother's here. Fantastic. What do you think of your daughter doing all this? So proud. Fantastic. I love seeing supportive parents out here because entrepreneurs need as much support as they possibly can get. Yes.
She was part of the first episode. She's now like kind of a lucky charm.
Do you grow it in the lab or do you synthesize it?
We biosynthesize it in our 2-liter bioreactor.
Do you need a brand or is this just all the same?
Our strategy is to go vertical. We are going to do this software. As I mentioned, this software is going to give us the data to make better drug discovery in the future. The idea is to go directly to the clinic or to the distributors.
Terrific, Victoria. Great to see you. Thank you so much. Thank you. James, you've got a skeptical look on your face. No, not skeptical.
I know people who've been using it without depression. I think a lot of our questions are around the tailwinds of the market generally. The commodification The thing that Andy asked at the end is my concern. You know, no one wants to be— even when medical cannabis became a thing, terrible business to be in. Just race to the bottom.
I think the marijuana, it was the wrong time because we didn't have the right regulations. There's a lot of hurdles. I envision her being kind of like the MedMen of marijuana where people are comfortable trying it. They feel like it's this nice place where they could be safe. And that's what MedMen tried to do. I think the timing was wrong.
Let's bring on our next entrepreneur. But before we do, what do we do? Before we do, we see what's going on behind the scenes. Or behind the eyeballs. Viewers, usually I'm pretty easy to reach. I mean, there are only 300 million of you. I'm making it a lot easier for you to contact me. I have downloaded my brain into this digital twin, and you can scan this QR code, you can pitch me your idea, you can talk about your business. Anything, and I'll answer it 24/7. Enjoy it. It's great. It's a new feature of Meet the Drapers and Draper TV. I think you're gonna have some fun.
