Ayla Bioscience Inc.’s modern journey began in the private dining area of a cozy restaurant in Basel, Switzerland. After a lively discussion on the untapped potential of all fungi have to offer, our founders decided to come together to form an organization that is revolutionizing the world of mycology.

It was at this meeting that Dr John Holliday (Dr. John) agreed to come on board as Ayla’s CEO and President. Dr. John’s extensive experience in the large-scale production of mushroom products goes back decades. He first started growing mushrooms back in 1976 and has been growing them ever since. Seeing an unfulfilled niche in the market, he founded the company Aloha Medicinals Inc. from his home in Maui, Hawaii in the mid 1990’s. Medicinal Mushrooms were virtually unknown in North America at this time, even though they had been popular in Asia for centuries. With the founding of Aloha Medicinals, Dr. John single-handedly introduced North America to medicinal mushrooms, establishing the first large scale commercial Medicinal Mushroom production facility, and introduced retail-ready medicinal mushroom supplements to the public. Within just a couple of years, Aloha Medicinals became the world’s largest producer of medicinal mushroom products, a position it still holds today.

With branch offices in Mexico, Europe, Africa and Asia and distribution in over 65 countries, Aloha Medicinals became known as the producer of the highest-quality medicinal mushrooms available anywhere. For the last 20 years Dr. John and Aloha Medicinals have been supplying more than 700 companies worldwide with the raw materials needed for their products.

But during all these years working with commercial medicinal mushroom products, it was another mushroom that really held his fascination. But this was the one mushroom he couldn’t openly talk about. Growing any type of Magic Mushroom was strictly forbidden in America during those years. Ultimately though, his fascination prevailed. On weekends and after hours, diligently working in his back room, toiling away in his secret laboratory late at night, this passion consumed his every waking moment.

But finally, his perseverance paid off: He developed the most groundbreaking technology in mycology yet, allowing the production of pharmaceutical grade psilocybin at a larger scale and lower cost than had ever been dreamed of before. This unique solid substrate fermentation method results in virtually a 100% bio-conversion rate, turning low cost starting materials into industrial quantities of pure psilocybin, at a cost less than 1/100 of the nearest competitor. This unique breakthrough is the reason why Ayla is projected to be supplying virtually all the world’s psilocybin within the next two years. Simply put, there is no other company today that can hope to compete with Ayla’s low cost of production.

The very first patent for hybridizing mushrooms ever issued was to Dr. John in 2008, for a process he invented allowing him to cross breed different mushroom species. Hybridizing in this way increases the production of active ingredients and reduces the time to harvest. By using this patented method Ayla has produced hybrid strains of magic mushrooms, crossbreeding different species of psilocybin producing mushrooms, resulting in a collection of proprietary strains that increase the production of psilocybin by as much as 10x more than any natural strain! These unique hybrids are proprietary to Ayla and the subject of a number of patents to be filed.

These are the advantages Ayla brings to the world: Extensive experience in large scale commercial production of mushroom products, unique proprietary cultivation technology, and rare strains of high-yielding hybrid magic mushrooms that allow the production of massive quantities of pharmaceutical grade psilocybin at the lowest possible cost of production, and the shortest timeline to market. While other startup psilocybin companies have never run large scale mushroom production facilities before or have a rolodex of over 1000 existing B to B customers and are focusing strictly on research with the hope of discovering these types of breakthroughs, Ayla’s staff has already been there and done that. While other startups are hoping to plant the tree that might bear fruit sometime down the road, when it comes to Psilocybin, Ayla already has a whole garden of low hanging fruit, just ready to pick.