Helius Medical Technologies (NASDAQ: HSDT), a company formerly focused on medical devices, announced a strategic shift today to adopt Solana’s native token, SOL, as its primary treasury reserve asset. The move, backed by an oversubscribed $500 million private investment, sent the company’s stock soaring over 200% in pre-market trading.
The private investment in public equity (PIPE) deal, priced at $6.881 per share, was led by crypto investment firms Pantera Capital and Summer Capital.
The offering includes stapled warrants that could bring in an additional $750 million, making the total potential capital raised over $1.25 billion. The offering, which also includes participation from investors like Animoca Brands, FalconX, and HashKey Capital, is set to close on or around September 18, 2025.
Helius plans to use Solana’s architecture to earn yield, including staking rewards of approximately 7%, and engage in other DeFi activities to generate shareholder value. “Our thesis is that all capital markets transactions, from tokenization to payments, are moving onto blockchain rails, and Helius aims to bridge public markets with the Solana network,” said incoming Executive Chairman Joseph Chee.
Dan Morehead, Founder of Pantera Capital, added that a “productive treasury company, backing the industry’s most affordable, fastest, and most accessible network, stands to substantially increase institutional and retail access to the Solana ecosystem.”
Institutional rivalry on Solana
The market reacted swiftly to the news, with Helius (HSDT) shares rallying over 200% in pre-market trading to surpass $24. In contrast, the price of SOL was down 4% in the 24 hours following the announcement.
This strategic pivot places Helius in direct competition with Forward Industries (NASDAQ: FORD), another digital asset treasury company backed by Galaxy Digital and Jump Crypto. Forward Industries recently closed a $1.58 billion PIPE financing and acquired over 6.8 million SOL at an average price of $232.
Helius’s strategic pivot signifies a growing trend among publicly traded companies to not only hold digital assets but also actively use them for yield generation, evolving the corporate treasury model pioneered by firms like MicroStrategy.
It brings a lot of institutional capital into the Solana ecosystem and sets up a straight competition between two listed companies that want to provide valuable and disruptive technology. This could be a strong push for the ecosystem become more used and nowadays financial activities in a more intensified way
Also Read: Forward Industries Acquires $1.58B in SOL For its Solana Treasury
