Nasdaq-listed biotech firm 180 Life Sciences (ATNF) is set to rebrand as ETHZilla after securing $425 million in private funding to pivot toward an ether-focused treasury strategy.
The transaction, structured as a private investment in public equity (PIPE), is expected to close by Aug. 1, the company said in a press release.
It’s backed by sixty institutional and crypto-native investors, including Polychain Capital, Electric Capital, GSR, and founders of major Ethereum-based platforms like Lido, Frax and EigenLayer.
The company plans to use the bulk of the funds to accumulate ether (ETH) as its core treasury asset and generate higher yields than with traditional staking.
Electric Capital will serve as ETHZilla’s external asset manager. The company will leverage its holdings through an on-chain yield generation program that combines staking, lending and liquidity provisioning.
ETHZilla will also launch along with a “DeFi Council” made up of Etherealize and other DeFi players to offer the company input on how to better monetize its ETH treasury.
“Our strategy at closing aims to allow investors to access exposure to a strong-yield potential ecosystem at the heart of the stablecoin and tokenized asset markets,” said McAndrew Rudisill, who is expected become chairman of the company after the deal’s closing. “We expect to assemble an incredible team of well-regarded veterans across traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi) to help guide this new chapter.”
The firm joins a growing list of publicly-traded companies betting on ETH. These companies, coupled with DeFi treasuries, have accumulated a total of $9.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency, equivalent to around 2% of its total supply, data from StrategicEtherReserve shows.
180 Life Science’s shares are down 7% after the opening bell to $2.69.