Forward Industries has kick-started its Solana treasury venture with an acquisition of 6.8 million SOL worth approximately $1.58 billion.
Nasdaq-listed Forward Industries, trading under the ticker FORD, shared this development in apress releaseon Monday, becoming the latest crypto treasury firm.
It revealed that this was the first of its many purchases, as it aims to become the world’s largest corporatetreasury holder of Solana.
Forward Buys Millions of Solana
The firm announced the purchase of 6,822,000 SOL at an average price of $232 per token.
Notably, it acquired this massive SOL stash at a cost of roughly $1.58 billion using both open market and on-chain purchasing mediums.
Meanwhile, the press release also disclosed that Forward Industries has staked all the Solana tokens it acquired to date.
This is part of its broader strategy to increase the SOL per share of investors at a quicker rate while building an “institutional-scale treasury.”
Remarkably, the acquisition follows a recent private investment in public equity (PIPE) fundraising round that finalized last week.
For context,Galaxy Digital, Multicoin Capital, and Jump Crypto led the private placement, which ended on September 11.
They raised $1.65 billion from the PIPE financing, all of which they plan to channel to buying Solana through Forward Industry.
This becomes the largest amount raised by a Solana treasury firm to date.
Notably, the announcement of the acquisition barely moved the shares of Forward Industries, as they traded at $36.29 at the time of writing, with a slight change in the past 24 hours.
However, FORD is up 38% in the last five days and 164% in the past month, according to data from Yahoo Finance.
Growing Institutional Allocation to Solana
Meanwhile, the Monday announcement follows a similar disclosure from Helius Medical Technology, another Nasdaq-listed firm.
Specifically, itannouncedplans to launch a $500 million corporate Solana treasury reserve after its recently concluded PIPE common stock offering.
Helius disclosed an oversubscription in its offering of $6.88 per share to private investors, raising $500 million in equity sales and up to $750 million in warrants.
It would use the proceeds of this round to buy Solana.
The announcement has sent Helius’stocksurging, with a 165% increase in the past 24 hours, to trade at $20.02 at the time of writing.
The treasury developments underscore the growing institutional interest inSolana, the sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.
Meanwhile, this, along with other bullish developments, has pushed SOL up 9.31% and 25% over the past seven days and one month, respectively.
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