Vancouver’s AbCellera announced today the appointment of Peter Thiel to its Board of Directors.
AbCellera is a privately held technology company with an antibody discovery platform that searches, decodes, and analyzes natural immune systems to find antibodies that can be used to prevent and treat disease.
Earlier this year Thiel was part of an investor syndicate that invested USD $105 million into AbCellera in a Series B round.
“Peter has been a valued AbCellera investor and brings deep experience in scaling global technology companies,” said Carl Hansen, Ph.D., CEO of AbCellera.
“We share his optimistic vision for the future, faith in technological progress, and long-term view on company building. We’re excited to have him join our board and look forward to working with him over the coming years.”
RELATED: AbCellera, Cymax, Klue, Thinkific, and Unbounce Hiring Virtually Next Week
Thiel was a co-founder and CEO of PayPal, a company that he took public before it was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. Mr. Thiel subsequently co-founded Palantir Technologies in 2004, where he continues to serve as Chairman.
As a technology investor, Mr. Thiel made the first outside investment in Facebook, where he has served as a director since 2005, and provided early funding for LinkedIn, Yelp, and dozens of technology companies. He is a partner at Founders Fund, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that has funded companies including SpaceX and Airbnb.
“AbCellera is executing a long-term plan to make biotech move faster. I am proud to help them as they raise our expectations of what’s possible,” said Mr. Thiel.
According to Bloomberg, the addition of Thiel as a non-executive board member is in preparation for AbCellera’s announcement that they will IPO on Nasdaq in an offering that will likely value the business at several billion dollars.