Forward Industries and crypto investment firm RockawayX have co-led a strategic investment in OnRe, a startup building reinsurance infrastructure on the Solana blockchain. This significant financial move is aimed at bridging the gap between traditional risk-transfer markets and decentralized finance rails.
The companies announced that they co-led OnRe’s $5 million Series A funding round. Alongside this investment, Forward Industries plans to allocate up to $25 million directly into the platform’s yield-bearing token operating on the Solana network. This capital injection is earmarked to help expand OnRe’s platform capabilities and attract
a broader wave of institutional participants to the emerging niche of onchain reinsurance.
OnRe is attempting to shift critical parts of the global reinsurance market—where traditional insurance companies offload their excess risk to third parties—onto high-performance blockchain infrastructure. By leveraging tokenization and smart contracts, the startup aims to modernize and streamline underwriting processes and capital flows that have historically relied on manual administration.
This initiative reflects a broader, highly experimental push across the financial technology sector to test real-world financial services, including insurance and reinsurance, on decentralized blockchain networks. Although adoption in this specific intersection remains at an early stage, strategic moves by major corporate entities signal a growing appetite for blockchain-native financial instruments.
Forward Industries (FWDI) maintains a prominent position in the digital asset ecosystem as the largest corporate holder of Solana (SOL). According to industry data, the company holds more than 7.01 million SOL on its balance sheet. Its Nasdaq-traded shares experienced market movement during a recent trading session, gaining about 5.8% during regular hours before retracing much of that increase in after-hours activity. Meanwhile, Solana (SOL) was recently trading at $86.61, marking an increase of about 2.7%.
Blockchain Pilots Target Inefficiencies in Global Reinsurance Market
While estimates from industry analysts vary, the global reinsurance market is valued at more than $600 billion, with long-term growth driven by rising global demand for complex risk transfer. When looking at total reinsurance premiums exchanged globally, the ecosystem is closer to $2 trillion in economic value.
Historically, the reinsurance sector has relied heavily on fragmented, manual, and paper-intensive processes to manage massive pools of risk. Blockchain-based platforms are increasingly being tested and developed as a modern solution to streamline these operations. By introducing shared ledgers, these networks allow for real-time tracking of policies, transparent underwriting, and automated claims settlement.
OnRe is not alone in its efforts to modernize this legacy sector. Re, a decentralized reinsurance protocol, represents another notable project working to connect institutional capital with collateralized insurance risk while simultaneously offering tokenized yield products to market participants.
Beyond reinsurance, a variety of other protocols are gradually emerging to provide specialized insurance and coverage solutions for decentralized finance applications and smart contracts. While the broader sector remains in its infancy and largely experimental, traditional financial institutions are also exploring digital asset integration. For instance, major insurance broker Aon has tested the use of stablecoins for paying insurance premiums.
Reflecting on the integration of digital assets into established financial frameworks, Tim Fletcher, CEO of Aon’s financial services division, noted that tokenized assets are likely to become increasingly integrated into traditional financial systems over the coming years as infrastructure matures and regulatory clarity improves.
Crypto Startups & Venture Capital
Crypto Startups & Venture Capital
Crypto Startups & Venture Capital
