Lionheart Ventures

Lionheart Ventures Research

Investment Thesis

Lionheart Ventures is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm built around what it calls "the wise development of transformative technologies." The firm's public-facing thesis draws on the idea, echoed from Carl Sagan, that wisdom must scale alongside technological power or that power becomes self-destructive. In practice this translates into two concentrated bets: transformative artificial intelligence that "defends and enhances human flourishing, agency, and resilience," and frontier mental health technology, including psychedelic-assisted therapy and neuromodulation. The firm deliberately narrowed its scope over time to these two areas, arguing they are where a small, high-conviction fund can have the greatest impact rather than spreading across a generalist mandate.

Stage Focus

Lionheart invests primarily at pre-seed and seed. Public deal data (via aggregator reporting) puts the bulk of activity at seed, with occasional earlier bets on university-spinout or scientist-founder teams in the psychedelics/neurotech space (e.g., 2A Biosciences, Cognigenics).

Check Size

Reported check sizes range from roughly $100K to $5M, with a stated sweet spot around $1.5M. This is consistent with a small, concentrated fund that writes meaningful but not lead-scale checks into rounds anchored by larger institutional investors.

Lead Tendency

Available evidence points to Lionheart primarily participating in syndicates rather than leading. Its investment in Woven Science's $8.5M seed was led by Noetic Fund, with Lionheart Ventures as one of several participants alongside London Impact Ventures and Anya Capital. Combined with a modest Fund II size ($10M raised as of May 2026), the firm looks structured to co-invest alongside larger AI and mental-health-focused funds rather than anchor rounds itself.

Recent Activity

Lionheart closed part of Fund II with a $10M raise disclosed in May 2026 (Venture Capital Journal), with the firm's target fund size not publicly disclosed. The firm continues to invest in AI, mental health technology, and adjacent impact-related companies. Recent portfolio additions tracked by third-party data include Gray Swan (AI red-teaming/security, 2026) and NeuroBionics (2025), alongside earlier-stage bets like Autumn (2025 seed).

Portfolio Highlights

Lionheart's public portfolio page (alphabetically organized, six pages) includes:

• Anthropic — general AI systems and large language models, built around responsible AI development.
• Calm — consumer meditation and mental wellness app.
• Charm Industrial — mobile pyrolyzers converting biomass into bio-oil for carbon removal and steelmaking.
• Clerkenwell Health — psychedelic-specialist clinical research organization operating across Europe.
• Cognigenics — genetic neuroengineering for non-invasive treatment of mental health disorders.
• Bexson Biomedical — subcutaneous small-molecule delivery for non-opioid acute pain management.
• Amandala Neuro — early-stage psychedelic-assisted therapy integrated into psychiatric care.
• 2A Biosciences — therapeutics targeting serotonin 2A receptors for inflammatory conditions.
• Causative Labs — AI and exponential-technology products aligned with human welfare.
• Carbon Crusher — carbon-crushing services for road infrastructure and climate impact.
• Bodhi — consumer astrology and wellness content app.
• Beam — shared e-scooter/e-bike/e-moped urban mobility across Asia Pacific.
• Gray Swan — AI safety/security (red-teaming for LLM deployments), Pittsburgh-based, Series A.
• Woven Science — psychedelic care platform, 2021 seed.

Team

Lionheart's core investing team is unusually senior and heavily weighted toward operator-founders and scientist-investors:

• David Langer — Founder & Managing Partner. Two-time entrepreneur; founded Zesty (YC-backed, acquired by Square in 2018) and GroupSpaces. MA Mathematics, Oxford.
• Shelby Clark — Partner. Founder of Turo (car-sharing marketplace); trained yoga/meditation instructor. MBA Harvard, BS Biomedical Engineering Northwestern.
• Brandon Goldman — Partner. AI-focused investor since 2017; lead architect at Blockfolio (acquired by FTX for $150M); early Box employee.
• Jurgen Herre — Partner. Global real estate/tech/healthcare ventures; former partner at MVP Tech and Hines Europe.
• Dr. Tim Mullen — Partner. Neuroscientist; co-founder of Intheon and Sanmai. PhD UCSD.
• Dr. Jessica Eisner — Venture Partner. Physician, 20+ years global health and medical product development; former FDA medical officer. MD UCSD.
• Amy Emerson — Venture Partner. 20+ years in psychedelic-assisted therapy development; founding CEO of Lykos Therapeutics.
• Huub Heijnen — Venture Partner. Applied AI entrepreneur; co-founder of Scape (acquired by Meta, 2020). MSc Robotics, ETH Zürich.
• Cyrus Hodes — Venture Partner. AI entrepreneur/policy advisor; co-founded Stability AI; advisor to the UAE Minister of AI.
• Rob Nail — Venture Partner. Robotics/automation expert; former CEO of Singularity University; co-founded Velocity11 (acquired by Agilent, 2007).

The firm also maintains a large extended advisory bench spanning AI safety (Roman Yampolskiy, Jeffrey Ladish, Richard Mallah), psychedelics/clinical research (Dr. Joseph Barsuglia, Dr. Gregory Wells, Josh Hardman), and operations/finance leadership (CFO Carlos López Enríquez, Chief of Staff Renée Alexiev).

Decision Process

With five equity partners (Langer, Clark, Goldman, Herre, Mullen) plus a bench of venture partners contributing domain expertise, Lionheart operates as a partnership model rather than a solo-GP shop, drawing on specialist venture partners for underwriting in AI and mental health/psychedelics respectively.

Founder Preferences

Given the team composition, Lionheart appears to favor founders with deep technical or scientific credibility — neuroscientists, clinicians, and AI researchers — over generalist operators, particularly in the mental health/psychedelics vertical where regulatory and clinical rigor matter.

Geographic Focus

Headquartered in San Francisco, California. Portfolio spans the US, Europe (Clerkenwell Health, UK/EU clinical research), and Asia Pacific (Beam's mobility footprint), suggesting a global sourcing approach without a hard geographic restriction, concentrated in English-speaking markets.