PALM BEACH, Fla. — Forum Markets, Incorporated (Nasdaq: FRMM) announced a $10 million revolving warehouse facility agreement Monday to finance auto loans originated through Automatic USA, a platform partnered with AI-driven credit analytics firm Karus, Inc., in which Forum holds an equity stake.
The facility, expected to support the aggregation of secured auto loans, is intended to fuel Forum’s strategy of tokenizing institutional-grade real-world credit assets. Forum anticipates realizing a 12%-13% yield on the warehouse facility, independent of the timing of future token issuance, according to a company press release.
Automatic USA automates loan applications at the dealer level, leveraging Karus’s credit analysis to deliver decisions within minutes. Forum aims to provide 24/7/365 loan settlement and capital deployment directly to auto dealers by combining AI underwriting, embedded warehouse capital, and blockchain infrastructure, a move the company believes is an industry first.
The structure builds on Forum’s existing integration with Karus, operationalizing a strategy to combine AI credit analytics with blockchain infrastructure. By embedding blockchain into the primary funding process, Forum intends to transform the traditional warehouse model into a real-time, blockchain-native issuance framework.
“One of Forum’s goals is to modernize how loans are originated, financed, and distributed,” said McAndrew Rudisill, chairman and chief executive officer of Forum. “By integrating Karus’ AI underwriting with our blockchain infrastructure and embedding warehouse capital directly at the point of origination, we are building a repeatable pipeline that connects auto dealer networks to both on-chain capital markets and traditional loan buyers.”
Liquidity.io is serving as the settlement partner for the facility, providing blockchain infrastructure collateralized by the Texas Capital Bank Government Money Market ETF (MMKT). Interest income from the warehouse facility will be combined with auto loans acquired from Karus-related pipelines to enhance the yield profile of upcoming auto loan tokenized products.
Forum anticipates the warehouse facility will generate a higher blended return profile than acquiring loans for long-term hold, which are expected to yield high single-digit returns. The company’s economic model seeks to generate value through yield on assets prior to tokenization, origination and structuring economics, recurring asset management revenue, and transaction-based activity as secondary liquidity develops.
The warehouse facility is intended to serve as both a proof of concept and an income-generating deployment of capital, establishing scalable funding infrastructure that can be replicated across additional asset classes. Forum recently appointed Robert Spake as General Counsel, according to a separate announcement, suggesting a focus on legal infrastructure to support its expansion.
Previously known as ETHZilla, Forum Markets rebranded to focus on tokenization strategy, a shift that followed a share price collapse, according to reports.