on LA Startups & Tech
On the stretch of Sunset Boulevard, where the line between West Hollywood and Beverly Hills becomes faint, inside an eight-story, low-rise medical building, wrapped with a 60-foot poster of J.Lo’s pixel-perfect naked body, the ketamine clinic of the near future is preparing for the clinically depressed.
Pasithea is the latest ketamine center to grace Los Angeles. Inside their state-of-the-art, 1,235 square-foot facility, light oak wood walls, the likes of Scandinavian-themed architecture proliferating throughout the city, welcomes patients with the prospect of chic possibilities.
“Tall doors and tall windows are hardwired to your brain to give you bigger thinking,” says Antonio Ocana, the clinical director of Pasithea’s L.A. office.
The tiny window in the waiting room—a feature typical of the other offices in the Sunset Medical Tower, or so I’m told—has been scrapped in favor of a cascading frosted glass.
“It’s to bring in more natural light,” says Daniela Amador, the 20-something interior designer of the clinic. And the removal of sharp corners in the waiting room in favor of curves, she says, “was a representation of the cycle of life.”
In that sense, the Pasithea clinic feels less like a psychiatric office where they administer intravenous dissociative anesthetics and more like a desert sanctuary.
“There are two types of [ketamine] clinics or two types of vibes so to speak,” says Manuel Hoyer, Pasithea’s VP of Growth and Marketing. “One is a very hippy-esque, mom-and-pop shop that to a degree feels very aligned with the movement around psychedelics that’s not quite super credible for folks seeking out something medically backed. And on the other side of the spectrum you have more dentist-office-like spaces that are not giving away the sense that this is an innovative treatment.”
This distinction is important considering Pasithea is hardly the first ketamine clinic to open brick and mortar in L.A. In fact, it’s not even the fifteenth. Since 2014, when anesthesiologist Steven Mandel, who co-founded Ketamine Clinics Los Angeles, began using ketamine for off-label purposes to treat depression and other mental health disorders, Los Angeles has seen more than 1,000% increase in the number of clinics, based on the current number of ketamine clinics listed on Yelp. The current market size of this industry is estimated at $900 million. It helps too that in 2019, the FDA approved a version of ketamine called esketamine for mental health treatment. Under the brand name Spravato, the antidepressant is administered via nasal spray.
At Pasithea, the price per session for IV ketamine treatment is $700.
“Spravato will be offered as well starting next month,” says Hoyer. They recommend starting with six sessions of IV ketamine that are typically undergone anywhere between one to three weeks. Other ketamine clinics in Los Angeles have a similar protocol but range in price between $400 and $700 per infusion. Which is to say, Pasithea, if anything, is on the higher end of the spectrum.
But such is the price of healing inside a facility that looks less like a medical office and more like a cream-hued fantasy dream. Similar in sensibility, as Hoyer says, to “Santa Monica’s Proper Hotel,” with its sandy palette that alludes to a beach setting.
In recent years or, at least since 2020, much of the reporting on ketamine clinics has, inadvertently, drawn attention to the “vibe” of the facilities. Last year, when reporting on Field Trip, a ketamine clinic in Santa Monica that opened in September 2020, dot LA’s Keerthi Vedantam noted that, “the clinic is outfitted with mid-century furniture, fluffed-up cushions and shaggy rugs, almost like an Architectural Digest spread came to life.”
In her story from 2020 on the mainstreamification of ketamine therapy, the New Yorker’s Emily Witt wrote that the “decorative touches'' of Field Trip’s New York office, “are spa-like: white rugs, fiddle-leaf figs, electric candles inside glass-paned lanterns.” Adding that, “The aesthetic seems based on the assumption that, when a company hopes to take a formerly taboo practice mainstream, a West Elm interior can go a long way.”
Additionally, Field Trip has been described as, “not your average doctor’s office.” The waiting room, writes Sara Spruch-Feiner for Coveteur, “looks more like your chicest friend’s living room, with plenty of natural sunlight, a tactile moss wall, and aesthetically minded furniture.”
All of which is a far cry from the ketamine clinics of yore, which one Redditor described as being “in the back of a [P]olish pharmacy next to a kebab shop,” or “full of incense and pretty psychedelic.”
According to Ocana, to be eligible for ketamine therapy inside Pasithea’s lush, contemporary facility, a patient has to have already tried at least two different SSRIs. Which is important considering IV administered ketamine is not currently FDA approved for any psychiatric indication.
“There are a number of FDA-approved medications and evidence-based treatments for depression, including medications, TMS [transcranial magnetic stimulation], ECT [electroconvulsive therapy] and evidence based psychotherapy,” says Charles Nemeroff, the chair of Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Texas in Austin. “Where ketamine should fall in the treatment algorithm is unclear at this time. I see many patients with treatment-resistant depression who are immediately sent to a ketamine clinic before other well-established treatments have been tried.”
To that end, Nemeroff says, only a small minority of the clinics you are referring to adhere to these recommendations.
“Unfortunately, if you have the funds to pay for a treatment, you can easily receive it,” he adds.
Which is exactly the sort of clientele Pasithea hopes to attract with its palatial motif. According to VP of Operations Chirstian Pedrini, their primary demographic is “people between the age of 25 and 45, successful, either corporate or execs, probably tech and working in the entertainment business, basically people working in high stress environments.” Adding that for these types of people, “the thing you always need to take into account with these psychedelic treatments, is setting is really important.” Hence the floor-to-ceiling wall installation in the waiting room, backlit and ornamented with white vases and beach dried palm spears. Or the white leather phlebotomy chairs. Or the vases and wall art sprinkled throughout the facility, that look as though they’ve been picked out of a CB2 catalog.
Such is the inevitable result of ketamine going mainstream and backed by venture capital. In fact, these days, you don’t even have to go looking for ketamine therapy to find it. Per Rolling Stone’s recent report on the telemedicine company Peak, they’re pushing ketamine therapy via TikTok. Pasithea, at least, who does offer at-home ketamine therapy, does require that a medical professional administer the IV.
Ultimately, says Amador, her goal when designing the Pasithea clinic was to redefine what a doctor’s office could be — to demolish that feeling most people get when they arrive inside the typically aseptic waiting area replete with old gossip rags.
“We want the opposite,” she says. “We want the patient to feel at home.”
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
When avatar startup Genies raised $150 million in April, the company released an unusual message to the public: “Farewell.”
The Marina del Rey-based unicorn, which makes cartoon-like avatars for celebrities and aims to “build an avatar for every single person on Earth,” didn’t go under. Rather, Genies announced it would stay quiet for a while to focus on building avatar-creation products.
Genies representatives told dot.LA that the firm is now seeking more creators to try its creation tools for 3D avatars, digital fashion items and virtual experiences. On Thursday, the startup launched a three-week program called DIY Collective, which will mentor and financially support up-and-coming creatives.
Similar programs are common in the startup world and in the creator economy. For example, social media companies can use accelerator programs not only to support rising stars but to lure those creators—and their audiences—to the company’s platforms. Genies believes avatars will be a crucial part of the internet’s future and is similarly using its program to encourage creators to launch brands using Genies’ platform.
“I think us being able to work hands on with this next era—this next generation of designers and entrepreneurs—not only gets us a chance to understand how people want to use our platform and tools, but also allows us to nurture those types of creators that are going to exist and continue to build within our ecosystem,” said Allison Sturges, Genies’ head of strategic partnerships.
DIY Collective’s initial cohort will include roughly 15 people, Sturges said. They will spend three weeks at the Genies headquarters, participating in workshops and hearing from CEOs, fashion designers, tattoo artists and speakers from other industries, she added. Genies will provide creatives with funding to build brands and audiences, though Sturges declined to share how much. By the end of the program, participants will be able to sell digital goods through the company’s NFT marketplace, The Warehouse. There, people can buy, sell and trade avatar creations, such as wearable items.
Genies will accept applications for the debut program until Aug. 1. It will kick off on Aug. 8, and previous experience in digital fashion and 3D art development is not required.
Sturges said that the program will teach people “about the tools and capabilities that they will have” through Genies’ platform, as well as “how to think about building their own avatar ecosystem brands and even their own audience.”
Founded in 2017, Genies established itself by making avatars for celebrities from Rihanna to Russell Westbrook, who have used the online lookalikes for social media and sponsorship opportunities. The 150-person company, which has raised at least $250 million to date, has secured partnerships with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group to make avatars for each music label’s entire roster of artists. Former Disney boss Bob Iger joined the company’s board in March.
The company wants to extend avatars to everyone else. Avatars—digital figures that represent an individual—may be the way people interact with each other in the 3D virtual worlds of the metaverse, the much-hyped iteration of the internet where users may one day work, shop and socialize. A company spokesperson previously told dot.LA that Genies has been beta testing avatar creator tools with invite-only users and gives creators “full ownership and commercialization rights” over their creations collecting a 5% transaction fee each time an avatar NFT is sold.
“It's an opportunity for people to build their most expressive and authentic self within this digital era,” Sturges said of avatars.
The company’s call for creators could be a sign that Genies is close to rolling out the Warehouse and its tools publicly. Asked what these avatar tools might look like, the startup went somewhat quiet again.
Allison Sturges said, “I think that's probably something that I'll hold off on sharing. We will be rolling some of this out soon.”
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
LA Tech Week—a weeklong showcase of the region’s growing startup ecosystem—is coming this August.
The seven-day series of events, from Aug. 15 through Aug. 21, is a chance for the Los Angeles startup community to network, share insights and pitch themselves to investors. It comes a year after hundreds of people gathered for a similar event that allowed the L.A. tech community—often in the shadow of Silicon Valley—to flex its muscles.
From fireside chats with prominent founders to a panel on aerospace, here are some highlights from the roughly 30 events happening during LA Tech Week, including one hosted by dot.LA.
DoorDash’s Founding Story: Stanley Tang, a cofounder and chief product officer of delivery giant DoorDash, speaks with Pear VC's founding managing partner, Pejman Nozad. They'll discuss how to grow a tech company from seed stage all the way to an initial public offering. Aug. 19 at 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. in Santa Monica.
The Founders Guide to LA: A presentation from dot.LA cofounder and executive chairman Spencer Rascoff, who co-founded Zillow and served as the real estate marketplace firm’s CEO. Aug. 16 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. in Brentwood.
Time To Build: Los Angeles: Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) hosts a discussion on how L.A. can maintain its momentum as one of the fastest-growing tech hubs in the U.S. Featured speakers include a16z general partners Connie Chan and Andrew Chen, as well as Grant Lafontaine, the cofounder and CEO of shopping marketplace Whatnot. Aug. 19 from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. in Santa Monica.
How to Build Successful Startups in Difficult Industries: Leaders from Southern California’s healthcare and aerospace startups gather for panels and networking opportunities. Hosted by TechStars, the event includes speakers from the U.S. Space Force, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, Applied VR and University of California Irvine. Aug. 15 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Culver City.
LA Tech Week Demo Day: Early stage startups from the L.A. area pitch a panel of judges including a16z’s Andrew Chen and Nikita Bier, who co-founded the Facebook-acquired social media app tbh. Inside a room of 100 tech leaders in a Beverly Hills mansion, the pitch contest is run by demo day events platform Stonks and live-in accelerator Launch House. Aug. 17 from 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. in Beverly Hills.
Registration information and a full list of LA Tech Week events can be found here.
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
Don’t look up now, but NASA’s upcoming DART mission is about to change planetary defense forever by proving that it’s possible to deflect a world-ending asteroid away from the Earth.
On September 26, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft will crash into the asteroid Dimorphos, attempting to alter the object’s trajectory around a larger asteroid called Didymos.
Not to worry, Bruce Willis and Michael Bay can sit this one out as Dimorphos is not on a collision course with Earth. The mission is the first-ever test to see if intercepting and striking an asteroid would work to deflect any future Earth-bound celestial objects.
The data collected will help scientists determine exactly how hard to hit an asteroid in the future, in the event that humanity must reckon with a celestial threat straight out of “Armageddon.”
The mission – managed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland – launched into space November 24, 2021 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Nearly 10 months later, NASA’s finally gearing up for DART’s impact.
DART’s 6.8 million mile journey was chosen because there is much to learn about the formation of the binary asteroid system, and its orbit can easily be seen through telescopes on Earth, making it an ideal target for this test.
But it won’t be easy to view the collision in real-time, because impact with the asteroid will cut off the data feed and destroy the spacecraft, and its high-tech space camera will be unable to record the collision. Thankfully, the Italian Space Agency is here to help – a small autonomous cube satellite (LICIACube) will fly by to photograph the impact and its effect on the asteroid system.
Long Beach-based startup Rocket Lab has a role in this mission, too – it is supporting the Italian satellite's journey to the asteroid inside one of its satellite dispensers, which deployed the CubeSat ten days before DART's impact to position itself to record the collision and ejecta plume dust cloud that will be lifted from the surface and interior of the asteroid on impact.
University of Maryland astronomy professor Ludmilla Kolokolova will then lead a team to analyze the images obtained by the Italian Space Agency’s CubeSat and model the ejecta plume.
NASA’s DART spacecraft and the Italian Space Agency’s (ASI) LICIACubeNASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben
The research conducted after Monday’s test collision will steer us into a new and exciting era of astronomy that goes beyond just planetary defense, but helps us answer some of the universe's oldest questions, like how our solar system was formed.
Kolokolova told dot.LA she’s most excited about scientific discoveries that this experiment could help reveal, beyond protecting the planet from interstellar threats.
“The main goal of the project is to show that we can deflect the asteroid from the collision with the Earth if such a situation appears in the future,” Kolokolova said. “However, for me, as an astronomer, the main excitement is to learn more about asteroids. I am interested in exploring their internal structure as it is a clue to their formation.”
“There are several different theories that describe their formation,” she added. “In order to select between them we need to know the asteroid structure - is it solid, or porous, or layered, or ‘rubble pile’? Actually, this is important to understand the origin of the Near-Earth (the most hazardous) Asteroids in general. We know they came from the Main Asteroid Belt. But what brought them to the vicinity of the Earth: gravitational influence of Jupiter and Mars or collisions between asteroids? Collisions should affect their surface and interiors, so we can find the answer to this question studying characteristics of Dimorphos and Didymos.”
Scientists will get an even clearer picture of the formation of these asteroids in four years when the European Space Agency’s Hera mission arrives to survey Dimorphos’s surface and measure its mass.
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) involvement in the DART mission can be traced back to 2013, when a joint operational mission with NASA, called AIDA (Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment), involved the ESA developing the AIM (Asteroid Impact Mission) orbiter to accompany the DART spacecraft on its journey. The project was eventually abandoned in 2016 due to lack of financial support and was officially replaced by Hera in 2019.
To view live coverage of the impact, tune in to NASA TV and NASA social media pages, including Twitter and Instagram, beginning at 3pm PST/6pm EST this Monday, September 26.
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