Forward Industries, RockawayX Invest in OnRe reinsurance Coinstar

Forward Industries and crypto investment firm RockawayX jointly 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 that they co-led OnRe’s $5 million Series A round, and Forward plans to allocate up to $25 million in Solana’s yield-yielding platform token.

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

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

The initiative reflects a broader attempt to experiment with real-world financial services, including insurance and reinsurance, on blockchain networks, although adoption is still in its early stages.

Forward Industries ( FWDI ) is the largest corporate owner 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 the regular session on Tuesday, according to Yahoo Finance. In after-hours activity, after all, most of that increase disappeared. SOL last traded at $86.61, up about 2.7%.

Forward Industries SOL accumulation over time. Source: CoinGecko

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Blockchain pilots target inefficiencies in the global reinsurance market

Although estimates vary, the global reinsurance market is esteemed to more than USD 600 billion, with growth driven by growing demand for risk transfer. Total reinsurance premiums are closer to $2 trillion.

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

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

Other protocols are emerging that provide insurance and reinsurance coverage for decentralized financial applications and smart contracts, although the sector is still in its early stages and is largely experimental.

There are also efforts to apply blockchain and digital assets in various parts of the insurance value chain. For example, insurance broker Aon has been testing the use of stablecoins to pay insurance premiums.

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

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