Sensei Biotherapeutics is planning IPO in February with investors Christian Angermayer, Uma Thurman and Steve Jurvetson from Tesla

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Movie star

Uma Thurman

("Pulp Fiction", "Kill Bill")

Photo: Kristin Callahan / imago images / ZUMA Press

The US start-up Sensei Biotherapeutics has raised $ 30 million in a financing round, manager magazin learned from the financial industry.

Company boss John Celebi and his colleagues in Boston are researching therapies and vaccinations against several types of cancer.

The basis for this are bacteriophages - viruses specialized in bacteria that are modified to trigger an immune reaction in the patient.

Therapy for head and neck cancer is in the early stages of the approval test (phase 1/2).

Sensei Biotherapeutics does not yet have any products on the market.

In February, the company is to go to the Nasdaq tech exchange and raise around $ 100 million in fresh capital.

The target market value is $ 500 million.

Citigroup, Piper Sandler and the Hamburg-based private bank Berenberg are mandated as consortium leaders.

In December, the Bloomberg news agency reported on the stock market plans.

Third stock exchange launch with Angermayer within months

The leading investors in the last financial round before going public are the US biotech fund Catalio and venture financier Christian Angermayer (42) with his family office Apeiron.

In 2020, the German already brought the Biotech Compass Pathways, which researches therapies against depression, and the antibody company Abcellera to the stock exchange.

Both newcomers are trading well above the prices that large investors paid on their debut: Compass Pathways has risen to more than $ 45 per share since the share issue of $ 17 in September, market value: more than $ 1.6 billion.

Abcellera's market value at an issue price of around 6 billion dollars has climbed to more than 10 billion dollars since it started on December 11th.

Tarantino, Krombacher and Tesla

Uma Thurman (50) is also invested in Sensei Biotherapeutics.

The Hollywood star ("Pulp Fiction", "Kill Bill") was also invested in Abcellera through Angermayer's VC fund Presight Capital.

The German brewery family Schadeberg (Krombacher) is also investing via Presight.

Future Ventures, a fund of the venture capitalist and Tesla and SpaceX board member Steve Jurvetson (53), is also involved.

Another prominent financier of Sensei is the former hedge fund manager and US billionaire Louis Moore Bacon (64) with his private company Moore Strategic Ventures.

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