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Shares of the Peter Thiel-backed psychedelic start-up Atai Life Sciences jumped Friday on its first day of trading on Wall Street.

The newly listed Nasdaq stock opened up 40% before pulling back some.

The German biotech’s initial public offering was priced Thursday night at $15 per share, the high end of the expected range. The company, which aims to make psychedelic drugs to treat mental health disorders, raised $225 million at a valuation of $2.3 billion.

Atai is the third psychedelic biotech to go public in the U.S., following in the footsteps of MindMed, which went public on the Nasdaq in April, and Founders Fund-backed Compass Pathways, which listed in September. As of Thursday’s close, Compass Pathways was up 26% since its debut, and MindMed, which just announced its CEO’s resignation, was down about 19% since its IPO.

Each biotech is developing therapies using the psychedelic mushroom compound psilocybin, LSD, and MDMA derivatives to treat addiction and mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia and traumatic brain injury. Three years after its founding, Atai Life Sciences has 10 therapeutic programs in its pipeline, each at various stages of clinical trials.

Atai founder and Chairman Christian Angermayer said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday, “The world we’re building is a bad place for our brain, so mental health issues will go up. But I do think we have some real shots in our portfolio to end the mental health crisis.”

Investor interest in psychedelic treatments has grown alongside burgeoning interest in these therapies from the medical community.

Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Icahn School of Medicine are among the centers studying psychedelics and psychology. Recent studies establishing MDMA’s promise in treating post-traumatic stress disorder and the efficacy of psilocybin, a hallucinogenic chemical found in psychedelic mushrooms, in treating drug-resistant depression have only heightened interest in the space.

Angermayer was an early investor in Compass Pathways, and his own company Atai serves as a holding company for various psychedelic start-ups pursuing alternative treatments for mental illness. He told CNBC on Friday that new-age biotechs are building on centuries of practice in shamanistic cultures and religions.

There are currently federal restrictions for psychedelic mushrooms, MDMA — commonly known as molly or ecstasy — and LSD around the world. However, Oregon last year became the first U.S. state to legalize psychedelics for therapeutic use. Residents in Washington, D.C., also recently voted in support of decriminalizing the use of psychedelics for medicinal purposes.

Atai Life Sciences at the Nasdaq for its IPO, June 18, 2021.
Source: Nasdaq

Angermayer is betting that federal approval of these drugs for therapeutic use could make a huge difference for those suffering from mental illness. “They are very, very powerful medications, but they have to be taken under supervision. … You will be tripping while you are sitting with your therapist.”

Atai Life Sciences is backed by the billionaire investor Thiel, as well as Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Investments and Angermayer’s own Apeiron Investment Group, among others.

According to venture capital tracker CB Insights, VC deals in psychedelics have risen substantially in the last three years: 2018 and 2019 saw less than $100 million of venture capital invested in psychedelic start-ups, but 2020 saw $346 million. By April 2021, VCs had already invested $329 million in the industry.

It’s no wonder that Atai’s was more than 12 times oversubscribed, according to one market source who asked to remain anonymous due to the nature of the discussion. “A good portion was taken up by existing investors,” the person said, adding that Thiel is the largest existing investor and that he’s “doubled down” in the IPO.

Investment fund Palo Santo said it had taken a notable stake in Atai’s IPO. “There is an urgent need to address our broken mental healthcare system,” Daniel Goldberg, co-founder of Palo Santo, said in a statement. “We believe psychedelics will expand treatment options and transform the outdated system.”

Atai submitted an S-1 filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission in April that showed it raised an aggregate of $362.3 million from private investors at that point.

The company, which describes itself as a drug development platform, was set up to acquire, incubate and develop psychedelics and other drugs that can be used to treat depression, anxiety, addiction and other mental health conditions.

Atai, which has roughly 50 staff members in offices across Berlin, New York and San Diego, is currently partnered with 14 companies focusing on drug development and other technologies.

In exchange for a majority stake in the drugs and technologies they’re developing, Atai helps the scientists raise money, work with regulators and conduct clinical trials. None of Atai’s drugs have been formally approved by regulators to date.

Thiel made an $11.9 million investment in Atai through his venture firm, Thiel Capital, in November.

“Atai’s great virtue is to take mental illness as seriously as we should have been taking all illness all along,” Thiel, who co-founded Palantir and PayPal, said in a statement shared with CNBC at the time. “The company’s most valuable asset is its sense of urgency.”

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SpaceX’s Starship explodes during routine test in Texas

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SpaceX's Starship explodes during routine test in Texas

A SpaceX Starship is seen in Boca Chica, Texas in 2023.

Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images

A SpaceX Starship rocket on Wednesday exploded at the Starbase facility in Texas during routine testing in preparation for a launch flight, according to local authorities and live stream footage.

The rocket “experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase” at 11 p.m. local time, SpaceX said on social media, noting “a safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted for.”

Local authorities said that Starship “suffered a catastrophic failure and exploded,” with no injuries reported at the time of writing and an investigation is now underway. Live stream footage of Starbase showed the rocket burst into flame, shooting a large fireball into the sky.

Another Starship launch was expected to take place by the end of this month.

It’s been a tempestuous ride for Elon Musk’s mammoth Starship, after three flight launch attempts devolved in fiery glory and air-traffic stopping debris this year to date. Notably, the rocket model has taken off successfully in previous instances, but its vast scale — standing 120 meters (394 feet) tall when factoring in the Super Heavy booster — has raised concerns over its overall reliability and requirements for orbital refueling once in flight.

Yet Musk has clinched his hopes on Starship as the key vehicle for both NASA’s third and fourth Artemis missions — part of a broader plan to return humans to the Moon — due to take place over 2027-2028. The rocket is also set to play a role in launching the Starlab private space station in the transition to commercial space orbiting labs once the International Space Station retires after 2030.

Critically, Starship is also central to Musk’s — and former ally U.S. President Donald Trump’s — broader ambitions to colonize Mars. The rocket is set to ferry Optimus robots to the red planet by the end of 2026, with Musk in March saying, “If those landings go well, then human landings may start as soon as 2029, although 2031 is more likely.”

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Apple looking to make ‘premium’ priced folding iPhones starting next year, analyst says

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Apple looking to make 'premium' priced folding iPhones starting next year, analyst says

People look at iPhones at the Apple Fifth Avenue store in New York City on May 23, 2025.

Adam Gray | Reuters

Apple has plans to make a folding iPhone starting next year, reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said on Wednesday.

Kuo said Apple’s folding phone could have a display made by Samsung Display, which is planning to produce as many as eight million foldable panels for the device next year. However, other components haven’t been finalized, including the device’s hinge, Kuo wrote. He expects it to have “premium pricing.”

Kuo is an analyst for TF International Securities, and focuses on the Asian electronics supply chain and often discusses Apple products before they’re launched.

He wrote in a post on social media site X that Apple’s plans for the foldable iPhone aren’t locked in yet and are subject to change. Apple did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Apple’s iPhone makes up over half of Apple’s business and remains an incredibly profitable product, accounting for $201 billion in sales in the company’s fiscal 2024. But iPhone revenue peaked in 2022, and Apple is constantly looking for ways to attract new customers and convince its current customers to upgrade to more expensive devices.

The Flex S is another concept device Samsung showed off at MWC. It folds in a more zigzag-like way to make an “S” shape.

Ryan Browne | CNBC

Several of Apple’s rivals, including Huawei and Samsung, have been releasing folding smartphones since 2019.

The devices promise the screen size of a tablet in a format that can be stored in pants pockets. But folding phones still have hardware issues, including creases in the display where it is folded.

Folding phones also have yet to prove they drive significant demand after the novelty wears off.

Research firm TrendForce said last year that only 1.5% of all smartphones sold can fold. Counterpoint, another research firm tracking smartphone sales, said earlier this year that the folding market only grew about 3% in 2024 and is expected to shrink in 2025.

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Scale AI not ‘winding down’ following Meta deal, interim CEO tells employees and customers

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Scale AI not 'winding down' following Meta deal, interim CEO tells employees and customers

FILE PHOTO: Jason Droege speaks at the WSJTECH live conference in Laguna Beach, California, U.S. October 22, 2019.

Mike Blake | Reuters

Scale AI’s Interim CEO Jason Droege said in a memo on Wednesday that the artificial intelligence startup is not changing course following Meta’s multibillion-dollar investment in the company last week.

“Unlike some other recent tech deals you might have heard about in the AI space, this is not a pivot or a winding down,” Droege wrote in a post directed at customers, employees and investors.

Meta has a 49% stake in Scale after its $14.3 billion investment, though the social media company will not have any voting power. Scale AI’s founder Alexandr Wang, along with a small number of other Scale employees, will join Meta as part of the agreement.

“Scale remains, unequivocally, an independent company,” Droege wrote. “This deal rewards many of the people who helped build Scale into what it is today, but more importantly to me, it’s also a validation of the course we’re on.”

Scale AI appointed Droege, the company’s chief strategy officer, to serve as its interim chief executive following the deal. Droege wrote that Scale AI is still “a well-resourced company” that has “multiple promising lines of business.”

Founded in 2016, Scale AI rose to prominence by helping major tech companies like OpenAI, Google and Microsoft prepare data they use to train cutting-edge AI models. Meta has been one of Scale AI’s biggest customers.

Droege said the company is “not slowing down” and remains committed to its data and application business units. Scale will also continue to be model agnostic, he added.

“The need for high-quality data for AI models remains significant, and with the largest network of experts training AI, we are set up well to help model builders keep pushing the frontier of what’s possible,” Droege wrote.

But some of Scale AI’s tech customers may be having doubts.

OpenAI confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday that it has been wrapping up its work with Scale AI over the past six to 12 months. The company said it’s looking to work with other data providers that have kept pace with innovation, and that its decision to wind down its work with Scale wasn’t influenced by the Meta partnership.

Google is also reportedly cutting ties with Scale following the company’s deal with Meta, according to a report from Reuters. Google declined to comment.

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Scale AI CEO departs for Meta in Zuckerberg’s latest AI gambit

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