Pe­ter Thiel's psy­che­delics-fo­cused ATAI ac­quires ma­jor­i­ty stake in Recog­ni­fy and its lead schiz­o­phre­nia can­di­date

Bil­lion­aire Pe­ter Thiel has made sig­nif­i­cant and some­times con­tro­ver­sial push­es in­to life sci­ences over the past few years, and one of his star­tups out of Berlin has made a new ac­qui­si­tion less than two months af­ter achiev­ing uni­corn sta­tus.

ATAI Life Sci­ences pur­chased a ma­jor­i­ty stake Tues­day in Recog­ni­fy Life Sci­ences, a com­pa­ny fo­cused on de­vel­op­ing treat­ments for cog­ni­tive im­pair­ment as­so­ci­at­ed with schiz­o­phre­nia. The fi­nan­cial terms of the deal weren’t dis­closed, but the ac­qui­si­tion fol­lows up a $125 mil­lion Se­ries C in No­vem­ber co-led by Thiel, lead­ing to a post-mon­ey val­u­a­tion of about $1 bil­lion for ATAI.

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