TARA Mind, a mental health company focused on providing safe and affordable access to psychedelic-assisted therapy, has secured $3 million in pre-seed funding from Red Cell Partners, an incubation firm that invests in technology-led companies that bring advancements to healthcare and national security. TARA Mind aims to address the systemic issues of accessibility and affordability in mental health care by building a network of vetted psychedelic-assisted therapy providers across the US and abroad and developing proprietary digital measurement-based care tools designed to ensure safety and optimize outcomes.
The company is also working with early-adopter employers to add the TARA Mind network as a supplemental benefit to existing health plans, thereby reducing health equity barriers while driving ROI for the employer. TARA Mind is led by Marcus Capone, a veteran Navy SEAL who founded the company after experiencing the life-changing benefits of psychedelic-assisted therapy himself. The company has convened a roster of renowned medical advisors to help define, iterate, and advance the standard of care for psychedelic-assisted therapy.
Capone, Co-founder & CEO of TARA Mind, shares: “After millennia of ceremonial and individual use, there is growing appreciation for the potential of psychedelic medicine to treat even the most devastating of psychiatric and related conditions, but the industry is still in its infancy. At TARA Mind, we aren’t being guided by ‘the buzz’ around psychedelics, nor are we chasing a quick profit from lingering loopholes in a post-COVID world. Rooted in our commitment to science and sound clinical practices, we are diligently building the scaffolding for the safe, affordable, long-lasting use of psychedelic-assisted therapy in America.”
In service of this mission, TARA Mind has convened a roster of renowned medical advisors to help define, iterate, and advance the standard of care for PAT. They include Sandhya Prashad, MD, Founder and President of the American Society of Ketamine Physicians, Psychotherapists, and Practitioners; Jerry Rosenbaum, MD, Harvard Medical School’s Stanley Cobb Professor of Psychiatry; Nolan Williams, MD, Stanford University School of Medicine Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; and Rachel Yehuda, PhD, an Endowed Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience of Trauma at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
“I am optimistic that the nascent psychedelic industry will provide needed new tools for treatment, but there remain significant uncertainties about delivery, scalability, and access to quality care when that time comes,” said Dr. Jerry Rosenbaum. “TARA Mind is poised to address these challenges as it works to become a responsible and unifying voice that helps to establish clinician-informed standards of care for these emerging alternative therapies and to enable, above all else, the safe and equitable access to psychedelic medicine that so many in our country desperately need.”
