Any idea why Linton is creating a competing company instead of doing this inside of TRIP? Why is there no reference to TRIP in this article?
Now Bruce Linton, the former CEO of cannabis giant Canopy Growth, has his eye on this fungus, and it may play a key role in his next massive money-maker.
Linton is a founding investor in Mood Science, a young company that’s researching the properties of cordyceps sinensis and other fungi with potential health benefits, dubbed “functional mushrooms.”
Mood Science is launching a line of drops, gummies and more using cordyceps, which the company claims can help with stress, energy and focus. And in the background, Mood Science will also conduct research into psilocybin, or “magic mushrooms,” which some believe are the future of mental health treatment.
Sitting at a table in Strange Love, a white-marbled financial-district cafe run by Mood Science’s sister company that boasts functional-mushroom-boosted coffee, Linton said he was struck not only by the monetary value of cordyceps sinensis, but also by its purported health benefits.
Functional mushrooms are not psychoactive like their magical cousins. Though they have been used in traditional medicine for centuries, research is still thin on their purported health benefits. But many companies in the psychedelics industry are getting into functional mushrooms.
Linton has had his eye on psychedelics for a while. After his departure from Canopy Growth, he told The Canadian Press he saw “untapped value” in the psychedelics industry.
Psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychedelic compound produced by more than 200 species of fungi, is a long game, Linton told the Star, whereas functional mushrooms can go to market right now because they aren’t psychoactive.
“(Psilocybin will) become increasingly more legal in more places,” he predicts. “So what you want to be able to do is start here in the functional, build your science, your brand, your competencies, and then when you can, you smash them all together.”
Linton built Canopy Growth into the world’s largest cannabis company. But can he do the same with mushrooms? There are a lot more unknowns in the mushroom world, from tight regulations on psychoactive mushrooms, to a lack of scientific research on the growing market of functional mushrooms and fungi including cordyceps sinensis.