Mill City Ventures III, Ltd. (NASDAQ: MCVT) has announced a $450 million private placement to pivot toward a SUI-focused treasury strategy. The financing involves selling 83,025,830 shares at $5.42 each, with closing anticipated around July 31, 2025. Approximately 98% of net proceeds ($441 million) will be used to acquire SUI tokens, making it the company's primary treasury reserve asset, while 2% supports existing short-term lending operations.
The placement is led by Karatage Opportunities and includes equal participation from the Sui Foundation, alongside Galaxy Digital, Pantera Capital, Big Brain Holdings, and 15+ institutional investors. Post-closing, Karatage co-founders Marius Barnett and Stephen Mackintosh will assume roles as Chairman and Chief Investment Officer, respectively. Barnett emphasized the timing aligns with 'institutional crypto and AI reaching critical mass,' while Sui Foundation's Christian Thompson highlighted SUI's design for 'scalability, speed, and security to support decentralized applications.'
The strategy establishes Mill City as the sole publicly traded entity with foundation-backed SUI treasury access, enabling token acquisition via open markets and institutional channels. This shift follows Sui's positioning as a high-performance Layer 1 blockchain developed by Mysten Labs, targeting mass adoption through low-latency transactions and Move programming language security.