OceanPal Inc. (NASDAQ: OP), an international shipping firm, has finalized a $120 million private investment in public equity (PIPE) to establish SovereignAI Services LLC—a fully owned subsidiary dedicated to developing blockchain-based AI infrastructure in partnership with the NEAR Foundation. This funding, announced in a press statement
SovereignAI's main mission is to bring to market the
The NEAR Protocol’s emphasis on agentic AI and chain abstraction meets the rising institutional need for privacy-centric, regulation-friendly solutions in industries such as finance, healthcare, and media. Sal Ternullo, who was recently named Co-CEO of OceanPal, stated that NEAR presents "the most significant asymmetric potential among established digital asset projects," with the intention of making SovereignAI a top public investment platform for NEAR tokens and its ecosystem, according to a
The deal drew interest from crypto-focused investors like Kraken, Proximity, Fabric Ventures, and G20 Group, as well as strategic advisors including Clear Street LLC and Cohen & Company Capital Markets. The advisory board for SovereignAI, led by NEAR Foundation CEO Illia Polosukhin, features industry leaders such as Lukasz Kaiser from OpenAI and Jackie Kennedy from Quicknode, highlighting the initiative’s commitment to advancing AI and blockchain, as referenced in the Morningstar release.
David Schwed, OceanPal’s COO, expressed the company’s goal to "create the infrastructure that enables large-scale, user-controlled, privacy-focused AI." He pointed out that NEAR’s framework delivers "the trust, security, and economic incentives needed to achieve genuine AI sovereignty," a vision shared with the NEAR Foundation, as reported by The Block.
Although
SovereignAI’s approach goes beyond simply holding tokens, utilizing returns from its assets to finance infrastructure initiatives. This strategy, together with NEAR’s AI-oriented technology stack, is designed to support autonomous agent commerce—where AI agents act as independent economic participants capable of conducting transactions and managing assets, as mentioned in the Morningstar release.
This development mirrors a wider trend of institutional interest in automation and scalable AI infrastructure, with ongoing support from both traditional financial institutions and crypto-native investors. As OceanPal undertakes this transformation, its dual commitment to shipping and AI sovereignty places it at the crossroads of two rapidly evolving industries.