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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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Astronomer CEO Andy Byron resigns after viral Coldplay kiss-cam controversy

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Astronomer CEO Andy Byron resigns after viral Coldplay kiss-cam controversy

Chris Martin of Coldplay performs at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire on October 12, 2021 in London, England.

Simone Joyner | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Astronomer, the technology company that faced backlash after its CEO was allegedly caught in an affair at a Coldplay concert, said the CEO has resigned, the company announced Saturday.

“Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and the Board of Directors has accepted,” the company said in a statement. “The Board will begin a search for our next Chief Executive as Cofounder and Chief Product Officer Pete DeJoy continues to serve as interim CEO.”

Byron was shown on a big screen at a Coldplay concert on Wednesday with his arms around the company’s chief people officer, Kristin Cabot. Byron, who is married with children, immediately hid when the couple was shown on screen. Lead singer Chris Martin said, “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.” A concert attendee’s video of the affair went viral.

In May, Astronomer announced a $93 million investment round led by Bain Ventures and other investors, including Salesforce Ventures.

Byron’s resignation comes after Astronomer said Friday that it had launched a “formal investigation” into the matter, and the CEO was placed on administrative leave.

“Before this week, we were known as a pioneer in the DataOps space, helping data teams power everything from modern analytics to production AI,” the company said in its Saturday statement. “Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met.”

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sells an additional $12.94 million worth of shares

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sells an additional .94 million worth of shares

Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia Corp., speaks during a news conference in Taipei on May 21, 2025.

I-hwa Cheng | Afp | Getty Images

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang sold 75,000 shares on Friday, valued at about $12.94 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Friday’s sale is part of a plan adopted in March for Huang to sell up to 6 million shares of the leading artificial intelligence company. Earlier this week, Huang sold 225,000 shares of the chipmaker, totaling about $37 million, according to a separate SEC filing. The CEO began trading stock per the plan last month.

Surging demand for AI and the graphics processing units that power large language models has significantly boosted Huang’s net worth and pushed Nvidia’s market capitalization beyond $4 trillion, making it the world’s most valuable company.

Nvidia announced this week that it expects to resume sales of its H20 chips to China soon, following signals from the Trump administration that it would approve export licenses. Earlier this year, U.S. officials had stated that Nvidia would require special permission to ship the chips, which are specifically designed for the Chinese market.

“The U.S. government has assured NVIDIA that licenses will be granted, and NVIDIA hopes to start deliveries soon,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday. Huang said during a news conference on Wednesday in Beijing that he wants to sell chips more advanced than the H20 to China at some point.

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Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchange Bullish files to go public on NYSE

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Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchange Bullish files to go public on NYSE

Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, Palantir Technologies, and Founders Fund, holds hundred dollar bills as he speaks during the Bitcoin 2022 Conference at Miami Beach Convention Center on April 7, 2022 in Miami, Florida.

Marco Bello | Getty Images

The Peter Thiel-backed cryptocurrency exchange Bullish filed for an IPO on Friday, the latest digital asset firm to head for the public market.

The company, led by CEO Tom Farley, a veteran of the finance industry and former president of the New York Stock Exchange, said it plans to trade on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “BLSH.”

A spinout of Block.one, Bullish started with an initial investment from backers including Thiel’s Founders Fund and Thiel Capital, along with Nomura, Mike Novogratz and others. Bullish acquired crypto news site CoinDesk in 2023.

“In the first quarter of 2025, Bullish exchange executed over $2.5 billion in average daily volume, ranking in the top five exchanges by spot volume for Bitcoin and Ether,” the company said on its website. The prospectus listed top competitors as Binance, Coinbase and Kraken.

The IPO filing says that as of March 31, the total trading volume since launch has exceeded $1.25 trillion.

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The filing is another significant step for the cryptocurrency industry, which has fought for years to convince institutions to embrace digital assets as legitimate investments.

It’s already been a big year on the market for crypto offerings, highlighted by stablecoin issuer Circle, which has jumped more than sevenfold since its IPO in June. Etoro, an online trading platform that includes services for crypto investors, debuted in May.

Novogratz‘s crypto firm Galaxy Digital started trading on the Nasdaq in May, moving its listing from the Toronto Stock Exchange. And in June, Gemini, the cryptocurrency exchange and custodian founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, confidentially filed for an IPO in the U.S.

Meanwhile, investors continue to flock to bitcoin. The digital currency is trading at over $117,000, up from about $94,000 at the start of the year.

President Donald Trump, on Friday, signed the GENIUS Act into law — a set of regulations that establish some initial consumer protections around stablecoins, which are tied to assets like the U.S. dollar with the intent of reducing price volatility associated with many cryptocurrencies.

In its filing with the SEC, Bullish says its mission is partly to “drive the adoption of stablecoins, digital assets, and blockchain technology.”

Crypto industry players, including Thiel, Elon Musk, and President Trump’s AI and Crypto czar David Sacks spent heavily to re-elect Trump and have pushed for legislation that legitimizes digital assets and exchanges.

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