Digital therapeutics pioneer Akili Interactive plans to go public in mid-2022 at a $1B valuation

Pal­i­hapi­tiya-Led SPAC to Merge With Akili in $1 Bil­lion Deal (Bloomberg):

Akili Inter­ac­tive, a start­up that has devel­oped a video game to help treat atten­tion-deficit dis­or­ders in kids, has agreed to go pub­lic through a merg­er with one of Chamath Palihapitiya’s blank-check companies.

The deal, which con­firms a Bloomberg News report, val­ues the com­bined enti­ty at about $1 bil­lion, Akili and Social Cap­i­tal Suvret­ta Hold­ings Corp. I said in a state­ment seen by Bloomberg. It will pro­vide as much as $412 mil­lion in gross cash pro­ceeds, the com­pa­nies said.

Led by Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer Eddie Mar­tuc­ci, Akili has devel­oped the video game that can be pre­scribed to improve the atten­tion of chil­dren with atten­tion-deficit hyper­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der, also known as ADHD. The FDA-cleared treat­ment known as Endeav­or­Rx is set to launch lat­er this year, the com­pa­ny said.

“Our type of med­i­cine is pret­ty unique in that it’s devel­oped as a rig­or­ous med­i­cine, tak­en through the FDA, pre­scribed by doc­tors, but it’s deliv­ered as an enter­tain­ment prod­uct,” Mar­tuc­ci said in an inter­view. “It’s about a patient no longer feel­ing like a patient but actu­al­ly enjoy­ing what they’re doing and hav­ing fun.”

The Announcement:

Akili Inter­ac­tive, a Leader in Dig­i­tal Med­i­cine, to Become Pub­licly Trad­ed Through Com­bi­na­tion with Social Cap­i­tal Suvret­ta Hold­ings Corp. I (press release):

Cog­ni­tive impair­ments – includ­ing poor con­cen­tra­tion, mem­o­ry loss, dif­fi­cul­ties learn­ing new skills, and dif­fi­cul­ties with deci­sion mak­ing – are in aggre­gate among the largest unmet med­ical needs, and are increas­ing­ly rec­og­nized as con­tribut­ing to or asso­ci­at­ed with dozens of chron­ic dis­eases and acute ill­ness­es, includ­ing atten­tion-deficit/hy­per­ac­tiv­i­ty dis­or­der (ADHD), major depres­sive dis­or­der (MDD), mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis (MS), and autism spec­trum dis­or­der (ASD), as well as post­op­er­a­tive cog­ni­tive dys­func­tion and COVID-19 “brain fog.”

Despite the rapid­ly grow­ing preva­lence of these con­di­tions, the acute exac­er­ba­tion of these issues by the pandemic’s impact, and the chron­ic, esca­lat­ing cog­ni­tive over­load from the pro­lif­er­a­tion of on-demand atten­tion-cap­tur­ing tech­nol­o­gy, there has been lim­it­ed inno­va­tion of nov­el treat­ment options … By har­ness­ing advances in cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science and con­sumer tech­nol­o­gy, Akili is chang­ing the neu­ropsy­chi­atric treat­ment par­a­digm. Akili’s patent­ed and clin­i­cal­ly val­i­dat­ed tech­nol­o­gy plat­form rep­re­sents a new cat­e­go­ry of soft­ware-based med­i­cine: advanced and pro­pri­etary dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics that are designed to direct­ly tar­get neur­al phys­i­ol­o­gy to bet­ter serve the needs of patients and their families.

The trans­ac­tion implies a post-mon­ey equi­ty val­ue of the com­bined com­pa­ny of up to approx­i­mate­ly $1 bil­lion and is expect­ed to deliv­er up to $412 mil­lion in gross cash pro­ceeds to the Com­pa­ny, includ­ing the con­tri­bu­tion of up to $250 mil­lion of cash held in SCS’s trust account and $162 mil­lion from PIPE investors at $10 per share … The pro­posed busi­ness com­bi­na­tion, which has been unan­i­mous­ly approved by the boards of direc­tors of both Akili and SCS, is expect­ed to close in mid-2022, sub­ject to approval by SCS’s and Akili’s share­hold­ers, reg­u­la­to­ry approvals, and oth­er cus­tom­ary clos­ing conditions.

News in Context:

• Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs rais­es $160M in equi­ty and debt to trans­form cog­ni­tive health­care via pre­scrip­tion videogame treatments
• Pear Ther­a­peu­tics rais­es $175M and goes pub­lic via SPAC deal rais­ing the pro­file of pre­scrip­tion dig­i­tal ther­a­peu­tics (Update: shares were priced at $10 on Decem­ber 6th; they are $4.35 now Jan­u­ary 26th)
• What are cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties and how to boost them?
• Does ADHD treat­ment enable long-term aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess? (Yes, espe­cial­ly when phar­ma­co­log­i­cal and non-phar­ma treat­ments are combined)
• Sur­vey of 2500 fam­i­lies finds what ADHD treat­ments seem to work/ not work as applied in the real world