Impact investor and advisor Christian Tooley posed a simple question to the audience at SXSW London last week: What if investors found a way to embrace human contradiction to contribute to change that goes beyond the returns so keenly sought for in venture capital?
Tooley was mainly referring to vice clauses, the restrictions that limited partners place on venture firms to guardrail their investments. But he also spoke about investing in overall systems, or the structures of everyday life, from biology to social.
Some of these no-no sectors often include products dealing with sex, substances like psychedelics, gambling, and tobacco, and such limitations are usually imposed by large institutional investors, who don’t want to invest in products that are at best controversial and at worst potentially harmful.
Tooley feels investors are missing out on innovation by keeping away from these so-called vices, especially where sex and substances are concerned. “Returns can be financial, cultural, and systemic,” Tooley told the crowd. “Sex is high-volume, consumer-facing, with lower upfront capital needs. Substances have moderate-to-long ROI but higher payoffs.”
He argued that such clauses are really more about bowing to the social stigma around these topics, even though some startups could be bringing about positive health and social benefits, in addition to being lucrative.
The sex tech market, for example, is expected to hit nearly $200 billion by 2032, he said. Over the years, the industry has received small but steady amounts of venture capital funding, a few hundred million at best. Specialized investors and firms, notably Vice Ventures, have sought to back more companies, but there hasn’t been an onrush, especially from mainstream investors, to follow its lead.
Even OnlyFans, despite earning billions in revenue, struggled to find investors because of its association with pornographic content. “Entire industries are underfunded not because they lack merit, but because they challenge comfort,” Tooley later told TechCrunch.
As an investor, Tooley has backed products such as Polari Labs, a tool that promises to improve anal sex, and linq, a company touting to provide a safer way to send nudes.
It’s not surprising that large institutional investors steer away from such categories, as many of them are endowments and pension funds looking to avoid legal uncertainty and reputational harm. Some investors who passed on OnlyFans were worried about minors possibly being on the platform.
Regarding substances, cannabis is a good example, because it is only legal on a state-by-state basis. There are legal, regulatory, and tax uncertainties that could come with backing what is, in most cases, a criminalized product.
With less competition from institutional funds, Tooley says vice investing can be a particularly good opportunity for smaller LPs, family offices, and progressive funds. “If you only focus on the perceived controversy, you miss the innovation and often, the returns, too,” he added.
Tooley said it is important to address the stigma around investing in areas that may be beneficial but are currently shunned. Tooley, for example, noted that it was considered controversial to talk openly about matters like menstruation.
Today, we have venture-backed companies like unicorn period tracker Flo, femble, and WomanLog.
Tooley imagines a world where more investors back taboo companies leading to better sexual health tools, psychedelic therapies with more cultural nuance, and biohacking relevant to queer and trans bodies. “We don’t just need funders comfortable with risk,” he said. “We need ones deeply uncomfortable with the status quo.”
This piece was updated to clarify what the speaker talk was about.