Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal Inc.
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ATAI Life Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company that plans to manufacture psychedelics for the treatment of mental disorders, announced that it plans to raise $ 100 million through an IPO.
The Berlin-based company, whose main sponsor is billionaire Peter Thiel, filed an S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.
The filing shows that ATAI has raised a total of $ 362.3 million from private investors to date.
It plans to sell its shares under the symbol ATAI on the technology-focused Nasdaq market in New York. A date for the IPO has not been set.
The underwriters for the IPO include Credit Suisse, Citigroup, Cowen and Berenberg.
ATAI, calling itself a drug development platform, was formed to acquire, incubate, and develop psychedelics and other drugs that can be used to treat depression, anxiety, addiction, and other mental illnesses.
The company, which employs around 50 people in offices in Berlin, New York and San Diego, currently works with 14 companies focused on drug development and other technologies. In return for a controlling stake in the drugs and technologies they develop, ATAI helps scientists raise money, work with regulators, and conduct clinical trials. None of ATAI’s drugs have yet been officially approved by regulatory agencies.
In November, Thiel made an investment of 10 million euros in ATAI through his venture company Thiel Capital.
“The great virtue of ATAI is taking mental illness as seriously as we should have,” said Thiel, co-founder of Palantir and PayPal, in a statement shared with CNBC at the time. “The company’s most valuable asset is its urgency.”
The company was founded in 2018 by entrepreneurs Christian Angermayer, Florian Brand, Lars Wilde and Srinivas Rao. It has invested in Compass Pathways, which has developed a synthetic version of the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, psilocybin.
Compass Pathways, which Thiel has also invested in, was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in September and is now valued at around $ 1.2 billion.
