In brief
- Publicly traded Helius Medical Technologies announced that it’s raising $500 million to establish a Solana treasury.
- The firm’s stock price rose by more than 141% as of the close of trading Monday.
- Helius Medical Technologies is not affiliated with notable Solana infrastructure startup, Helius.
Medical devices manufacturer Helius Medical Technologies has raised $500 million through a private placement in public equity (PIPE) to create a Solana treasury, the company announced on Monday, part of a growing list of Nasdaq-traded companies shifting their focus to accumulate SOL.
Venture capital firms Pantera Capital and Summer Capital led the offering, which also included Big Brain Holdings, Avenir, FalconX, Arrington Capital, Animoca Brands, and HashKey Capital, among others. The offering is expected to close on or around Thursday.
“We believe that Solana is a category-defining blockchain and the foundation on which a new financial system will be built,” said Dan Morehead, founder and managing partner of Pantera Capital.
The announcement follows closely after several others in recent months involving Solana treasuries as companies—many of them struggling—seek ways to benefit from the surge in digital asset markets. Their efforts have, in turn, helped fuel the rally in crypto prices this year. Solana was recently trading at $233, up nearly 60% over the past three months.
A Myriad market showed that investors are upbeat about Solana, with 90% of them saying it would sooner rise to $250 rather than sink to $130.
(Disclosure: Myriad is a prediction market and engagement platform developed by DASTAN, parent company of an editorially independent Decrypt.)
Helius shares closed at $18.27, up about 141% in Monday trading, regaining a small portion of ground it has lost over the past year. HSDT hit over $772 last December.
Participants in the PIPE, which Helius said was “oversubscribed,” purchased common stock (and/or pre-funded warrants to purchase shares) for $6.81 and stapled warrants to buy shares with an exercise price equal to $10.13 per stapled warrant. Investors can exercise the stapled warrants for three years from the issue date.
Stapled warrants are contractual agreements that are tied to another security and cannot be exchanged or sold alone. Companies use them to make an offer more inviting for investors.
The announcement led to a humorous moment when Mert Mumtaz, the CEO of Helius—an unaffiliated provider of infrastructure and tooling for Solana developers—wrote on Twitter that he had received more than 50 messages assuming his company was responsible for the treasury.
“I’m not involved with this at all,” the prominent Solana ecosystem personality noted, adding: “The universe is quite literally trolling me at this point. Again: I am not involved, neither is Helius Labs nor Helium nor Helio nor Heliux nor Helicopter.”
On Monday, medical design firm Forward Industries completed its first major Solana acquisition, becoming the largest publicly traded Solana treasury after amassing nearly $1.6 billion worth of SOL.
Last week, Canada-based SOL Strategies started trading on the Nasdaq Exchange, increasing its exposure to investors beyond the Canadian Stock Exchange and OTC markets. The firm has about $100 million worth of SOL in its treasury, though users have pledged a much larger tally to its network validator business. Based on its August business update, SOL Strategies now has 3.6 million SOL delegated to its validators, or greater than $820 million in assets under delegation.
Earlier this month, medical device packaging company Sharps Technology announced the acquisition of 2 million Solana, creating a $400 million treasury. Over the past three weeks, DeFi Development Corp, previously known as Janover—a real estate financing platform turned AI services firm—has added more than 603,000 SOL, bringing its tally above 2 million SOL.
Consumer products manufacturer Upexi now also holds more than 2 million Solana, nearly tripling its total, after multiple SOL purchases since June. And Classover, an edtech company, announced in June that it had purchased about 6,500 SOL as the first step in a plan backed by a $500 million convertible note program dedicated to acquiring and staking SOL.
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Source: https://decrypt.co/339471/helius-shares-pump-500-million-raise-solana-treasury
