Forward Industries: The SOL treasury company with a $1.65 billion warchest

Forward Industries, founded in 1961, has for most of its existence been a global design, manufacturing, and distribution company specialising in medical and technological cases. 

For example, Forward Industries manufactures custom-designed cases for insulin pumps as well as protective cases for laptops and tablets.

Now, the company looks set to be a manufacturer of cases and a digital asset treasury company after it announced a PIPE (private investment in public equity) deal financed by Galaxy Digital, Jump Crypto and Multicoin Capital. The deal is worth $1.65 billion and Forward Industries plans to use all of this to purchase SOL. 

Mr Pruitt, Interim CEO of Forward Industries said this about the deal:

“Forward Industries’ mission has been centered around operational and innovative excellence, and we are now extending that same principle to our capital strategy by building a balance sheet with SOL at its core. We are grateful for the tremendous support of our PIPE financing investors and the collaboration of our partners. Together, we aim to unlock Solana’s potential in the capital markets through diversified and innovative return generation strategies.”

Signs of the huge fundraising deal were identified on-chain by analysts using the Arkham Intel platform a day before the deal was announced.

Since the huge movements were discovered, funds have been transferred by Forward Industries to Galaxy Digital. On Thursday, Galaxy Digital started buying SOL on behalf of Forward Industries and they have continued buying, depositing the SOL in a Fireblocks Custody wallet. 

The Forward Industries share price was up 20% on Thursday off the back of the news. However, in the last five days, the stock is up 135%. 

Forward Industries is set to become the largest SOL treasury company with its $1.65 billion war chest. Other notable SOL treasury companies are DeFi Development with $460 million, Upexi Inc with $460 million in SOL, Sharps Technology with over $400 million, and many more. 

Public companies now hold 4.71 million SOL tokens, worth over $1.1 billion at the time of writing.