Forward Industries, RockawayX Invest in OnRe Reinsurance

Forward Industries and crypto investment company RockawayX have co-led a strategic investment in OnRe, a startup building reinsurance infrastructure on the Solana blockchain, in a move aimed at bringing traditional risk-transfer markets onto decentralized rails.

The companies said Tuesday they co-led OnRe’s $5 million Series A round, with Forward planning to allocate up to $25 million into the platform’s yield-bearing token on Solana.

The funding will be used to expand OnRe’s platform and attract more institutional participants to onchain reinsurance, a niche but emerging segment within decentralized finance.

OnRe is attempting to shift parts of the reinsurance market — where insurers offload risk to third parties — onto blockchain infrastructure, using tokenization and smart contracts to manage underwriting and capital flows.

The initiative reflects a broader push to experiment with real-world financial services, including insurance and reinsurance, on blockchain networks, although adoption remains at an early stage.

Forward Industries (FWDI) is the largest corporate holder of Solana (SOL), with more than 7.01 million SOL on its balance sheet, according to industry data. Its Nasdaq-traded shares gained about 5.8% in Tuesday’s regular session, according to Yahoo Finance. In after hours activity, at last look, most of that increase evaporated. SOL was last trading hands at $86.61, up about 2.7%.

Forward Industries’ SOL accumulation over time. Source: CoinGecko

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Blockchain pilots target inefficiencies in global reinsurance market

While estimates vary, the global reinsurance market is valued at more than $600 billion, with growth driven by rising demand for risk transfer. Total reinsurance premiums are closer to $2 trillion in value. 

Blockchain-based platforms are being tested as a way to streamline traditionally manual processes by introducing shared ledgers for real-time tracking, underwriting and claims settlement.

OnRe is not alone in this effort. Re, a decentralized reinsurance protocol, is another project aiming to connect institutional capital with collateralized insurance risk while offering tokenized yield products.

Other protocols are also emerging to provide insurance and reinsurance coverage for decentralized finance applications and smart contracts, though the sector remains early-stage and largely experimental.

There are also efforts to apply blockchain and digital assets across different parts of the insurance value chain. For example, insurance broker Aon has tested the use of stablecoins for paying insurance premiums. 

Tim Fletcher, CEO of Aon’s financial services devision, said tokenized assets are likely to become increasingly integrated into traditional financial systems. 

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