Agents of Impact | October 18, 2024

Shawn Lesser, The REAL: A new path for men’s mental health

Roodgally Senatus
ImpactAlpha Editor

Roodgally Senatus

Shawn Lesser was long a familiar sight in baseball caps branded “Big Path Capital,” the impact investment banking and advisory firm he founded with Michael Whelchel in 2007. These days, he sports caps emblazoned with “The REAL,” short for The REAL Mental Health Foundation, the Atlanta nonprofit he launched last year to use conversation and community to improve the mental health of men and their families.

Returning to his impact investing roots, he’s rolling out a fund of funds he hopes can attract $200 million for emerging mental health funds and companies. “We are building the mental health ecosystem by applying the same approach that succeeded in impact investing,” Lesser said this week at The REAL Summit, which convened several hundred financial executives at Deutsche Bank’s headquarters in New York. 

Lost productivity due to depression and anxiety costs the global economy an estimated $1 trillion a year. Teletherapy, AI-based treatments and other healthtech innovations are fueling a global mental health market that is projected to reach $560 billion by 2030.

The fund, which Lesser plans to pitch to global leaders in Davos this January, will co-invest alongside venture funds in mental health startups. “There is a pipeline,” Lesser says, “and a lot of them are here right now.”

When Big Path Capital launched, “Impact investing was just a concept. People didn’t know where to start, but we created a roadmap,” Lesser told ImpactAlpha. “With The REAL, we’re doing the same for mental health.” 

Two years ago, the father of two was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta after a three-month battle with depression and anxiety attacks. His breaking point came during a work Zoom call. “I had a full mental breakdown where I was not functioning correctly,” Lesser recalls. “I couldn’t speak and I was suicidal. I was telling my wife: ‘I don’t want to be here anymore.’”

Lesser, 55, fell deeper into depression at the beginning of last year when his Big Path partners bought him out of the firm. “I got some money. But like a lot of people, my company was my whole existence,” he shared.

With support from his friend and mental health sponsor Brent Hert and others, Lesser checked into a treatment center and eventually made progress. He hopes to inspire others to take their mental health seriously. “Mental health affects everybody,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if you’re young, old, Black, green, white, or orange. Mental health doesn’t discriminate, and every human is affected.”