Brera Holdings, a Nasdaq-listed sports ownership group with football clubs in Italy and across Europe, is rebranding as Solmate after raising $300 million through an oversubscribed private investment in public equity (PIPE). The company, which saw its stock price surge over 225% on the news, will pivot its core business to a digital asset treasury and infrastructure provider focused on the Solana (SOL) ecosystem.
According to the announcement on Thursday, the financing was supported by UAE-based Pulsar Group, ARK Invest, RockawayX, and the Solana Foundation.
Now, Solmate will not only focus on sport but also on building digital asset treasury based on Solana (SOL). In short, the firm will start collecting and staking SOL while setting up validator operations in Abu Dhabi.
A validator secures the network and earns rewards, and Solmate plans to run bare-metal servers in the UAE to offer better performance than typical setups. The firm also said may list its shares on a UAE exchange while keeping its Nasdaq spot
Marco Santori, who was formerly the Chief Legal Officer at Kraken and a partner at Pantera Capital, has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer of Solmate.
“Our stakeholders have deep, long-term conviction in the Solana ecosystem and will demand that we accumulate SOL through bull markets and bear markets alike,” Santori said in the release. He added that Solmate will build “real crypto infrastructure in the UAE” as part of its strategy.
The new board of Solmate will also include well-known economist Arthur Laffer, who invented the Laffer Curve and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, along with RockawayX CEO Viktor Fischer.
Two board seats have also been reserved for representatives from the Solana Foundation. Laffer said that “sound money has been the foundation of strong economies” and called digital assets a positive step forward in monetary history. Fischer added that he believes Solana will be “the dominant blockchain network for capital markets.”
Meanwhile, Brera will continue to run its existing sports clubs, while putting its main focus on crypto. Moreover, this is coming at a time where the Solana’s interest from institutions is increasing. Investors like Galaxy Digital and Forward Industries making billion-dollar level purchases.
Also Read: Plasma To Launch Mainnet Beta With $2B Stablecoins
