Public Verb Technology will raise $558 million to invest in TON

What’s new? Verb Technology, a developer of marketing technology solutions, with the participation of venture capital firm Kingsway Capital, will conduct a private financing round for $558 million. The funds will be used to purchase native tokens of The Open Network (TON) blockchain.

Press release

What else is known? As a result of the initiative, Verb Technology will become the first public company with a TON treasury and will be able to offer shareholders access to the asset through its securities. Previously, public companies focused only on the oldest cryptocurrencies with the largest capitalization: Bitcoin and Ethereum.

For example, the largest holder of Bitcoin among them is Michael Saylor’s analytical software development company Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), and the leader in terms of ETH treasury volume is now the miner BitMine Immersion.

In addition, Verb Technology will rebrand and change its name to TON Strategy. Its shares are trading under the ticker VERB on Nasdaq at $17,5, adding 84% over the past 24 hours on the news. The growth since the beginning of the year was 161%, but since trading began in 2015, the securities have lost almost 100% of their value. After the rebranding, the ticker will remain the same.

Plus, TON itself reacted to the press release, but the price movement was negative: the asset lost 7% over the day and was trading at $3,38 at the time of writing. TON, closely associated with Telegram as the exclusive blockchain supported by the messenger, ranks 27th in the overall cryptocurrency ranking by market capitalization with $8,2 billion.

According to a press release, VERB has entered into an agreement with institutional and accredited investors to sell 58,7 million common shares at $9,51, which corresponds to the closing price on August 1, with expected gross proceeds of $558 million.

After the deal closes, which is expected on August 7, the company intends to use most of the net proceeds to purchase TON, making the token the company’s primary reserve asset.

This is expected to make the company one of the largest TON holders in the world and enable it to receive sustainable staking rewards. The company’s current operations will continue and expand, the statement notes.

Key positions in the company will be filled by crypto industry experts following the rebranding and closing of the deal.

Manuel Stotz, founder and CEO of Kingsway Capital and president of the TON Foundation, will become executive chairman, while Veronika Kapustina, former senior advisor to the TON Foundation and former Morgan Stanley banker, will become CEO. The position of CFO will be filled by Sarah Olsen, co-founder of Europa Partners and former head of corporate development for JPMorgan’s Onyx blockchain division, and Peter Smith, CEO and co-founder of the Blockchain.com exchange and wallet service, will serve as special advisor.

More than 110 investors participated in the deal, including Blockchain.com, CMCC Global, Pantera, MEXC, Animoca, Kraken, BitGo, and The Open Platform (TOP), as well as Ethena Labs founder Guy Young.