Tech bil­lion­aire Pe­ter Thiel backs a lead­ing psy­che­del­ic drug de­vel­op­er

Right on the heels of in­vest­ing in an­ti­body drug de­vel­op­er Ab­Cellera, Face­book bil­lion­aire Pe­ter Thiel has jumped in­to a syn­di­cate putting up $125 mil­lion for a com­pa­ny with a port­fo­lio of psy­che­del­ic drugs in the clin­ic for men­tal health.

The C round — which in­cludes a $32 mil­lion con­ver­sion of notes to eq­ui­ty — will fu­el the de­vel­op­ment pro­grams at ATAI Life Sci­ences, a Berlin-based biotech that has as­sem­bled a port­fo­lio of com­pa­nies with psy­che­del­ic and non-psy­che­dilc ap­proach­es to de­pres­sion, anx­i­ety and ad­dic­tion.

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