Christian Angermayer

Christian Angermayer (born 26 April 1978) is a German entrepreneur, investor and executive film producer. He is the founder of the private investment firm Apeiron Investment Group and the biotechnology company atai Life Sciences. Angermayer is a co-founder of the blockchain startup Plasma. His business interests include biotechnology, psychedelics-based medicine, longevity research, financial technology, cryptocurrency, and emerging technologies. In 2024, Forbes remarked that he is a pioneer in the cryptocurrency industry and was "seemingly behind every flashy investment of the last decade".

He has a reputation as a notable, but controversial social networker with international ties to political figures, business people and media personalities, including the investor Peter Thiel and the Trump family. He is a longtime advisor to Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda.

Early life and education Angermayer was born in Wiesau, Germany on 26 April 1978. In 1998, he enrolled at the University of Bayreuth to study biochemistry, where he met two professors, Roland Kreutzer and Stefan Limmer who were working on a new gene-targeting method called RNA interference.

Career Angermayer began his career as an entrepreneur and financier, founding Apeiron Investment Group (based in Sliema, Malta), his family office and merchant-banking business, which invests across life sciences, financial technology, cryptocurrency and future technologies. According to CNBC, The fund focuses on "life sciences, deep tech, fintech (financial technology), property and insurance". The fund has a partnership with the Founders Fund and Thiel Capital. The international venture arm of Apeiron is Presight Capital, which he co-founded with Fabian Hansen in order to invest outside Germany and Europe, and which raised its first fund (totalling $80 million) in 2019.

In 2018 he founded atai Life Sciences, a biotechnology company focused on developing treatments for mental-health conditions such as depression, anxiety and addiction, including through research on psychedelic compounds like psilocybin and DMT. Thiel is a backer of atai Life Sciences. In 2019, Scientific American remarked that, "Today, with a net worth of roughly $400 million accrued through various enterprises, Angermayer is one of the driving forces behind the movement to turn long-shunned psychoactive substances, like the psilocybin derived from so-called magic mushrooms, into approved medications for depression and other mental illnesses." Bloomberg refers to Angermayer as "he of magic mushrooms fame".

A businessline of Apeiron is making introductions between investors and the companies they want to invest in. Northern Data (of which Thiel-backed Block.one is a shareholder ) and Blackrock Neurotech (which he also co-chairs; Thiel is also an investor, having been introduced to the startup by Angermayer ). Some of the deals made through Apeiron performed poorly for the investors, including Chinese conglomerate HNA Group's deal with Deutsche Bank (HNA became the largest shareholder in the struggling bank, then had to sell the shares and ultimately went bankrupt), or Softbank's deal with Wirecard (Softbank sold the shares before Wirecard went bankrupt).

He is a co-founder of Plasma (XPL), a blockchain startup that focuses on stablecoins and is designed as Bitcoin's sidechain. He invested in its seed round, alongside Thiel. Alongside Thiel, Mike Novogratz, Richard Li, Nomura and others, he invests in the blockchain company Bullish.

Angermayer and Novogratz co-founded Cryptology Asset Group, and have jointly invested in psychedelic ventures. Novogratz remarked that, "He’s probably the best networker I’ve ever met [...] He’s built this amazing network of people who like and have learned to trust him because he’s made them money. As a capital raiser, he’s awesome." Filth (2013), Hector and the Search for Happiness (2014), Doctor Jekyll (2023). His film production company Film House Germany, founded by Angermayer in 2011, is based in Berlin and Los Angeles. He is also a member of the Clinton Global Initiative.

He is on the Presidential Advisory Council of Paul Kagame who has been president of Rwanda since 2000. Like Angermayer, Blair belongs to a group of advisors to Kagame, which also includes former US president Bill Clinton, businessman and professor Michael Porter, former World Bank's president Paul Wolfowitz.

Scientific American claims that, "Angermayer is plugged in to the German political scene, and is on good terms with German Chancellor Angela Merkel." According to Sifted, Angermayer "has also won the ear of political leaders — his sideboard has pictures of him with German chancellor Angela Merkel and Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz and European Central Bank head Christine Lagarde[...]." Stern notes that around 2012, Angermayer's business faltered, and he shifted focus towards using his gift as a networker to broker contacts for high-level politicians and businesses. In 2012 alone, he offered to arrange around a dozen meetings with CDU politician Philipp Mißfelder.

Angermayer has been hosting exclusive side events as one of the Munich Security Conference sponsors.

Views Angermayer advocates what he calls the "Next Human Agenda", promoting technologies aimed at extending human healthspan and wellbeing.

Controversies In 2012, German business magazine Wirtschaftswoche analyzed Angermayer's conglomerate of then more than 40 companies, with 5bn euros under management, and the collapse of the CFC investment company that Angermayer's Silvia Quandt & Cie. took public. (Silvia Quandt & Cie. is acting like a bank without having a banking license, Wirtschaftswoche noted. Angermayer co-founded it in 2006, together with Silvia Quandt, her son Golo, and Joachim Paech. Angermayer used the Quandt family name to promote his subsidiary companies, and analysts from Angermayer's Silvia Quandt Research publish recommendations to buy stocks of Angermayer's subsidiaries.) Angermayer's relationship with Donald Trump also started before his first presidency, when the former brokered the German rights for Trump's books in 2015.

Angermayer is also a close associate of German politicians Peter Altmaier, Jens Spahn and former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz. In 2023, the Stern made inquiries to the government about Angermayer, his involvement with the space laser company Mynaric (which has business dealings with China, and which Thiel also invests in) and his contacts (and possible lobbying activities) with German politicians like Altmaier and Jörg Kukies. The latter had participated in events organized by Angermayer such as "Angermayer Policy & Innovation Forum", co-hosted by Sebastian Kurz in 2022.

In 2023, a Business Insider report described an FBI inquiry into Peter Thiel and his relationships with people known to represent Kremlin's interests. The report also revealed aspects of Angermayer's network. He is homosexual. He is a Christian and believes that psychedelic use supports religious belief.