Fortitude and HeartSciences Announce Merger Agreement to Form Publicly Traded Venture Mining Platform

Ropes & Gray represented Digital Currency Group and its subsidiary, Fortitude Mining Holdings, Inc., in a definitive merger agreement with HeartSciences, Inc. to form what is believed to be the first publicly traded venture mining platform. The transaction was announced on June 23.

Fortitude is a vertically integrated digital asset mining platform anchored in Zcash. Zcash is a privacy-preserving, Proof-of-Work asset that was launched in 2016 from Bitcoin's codebase that shares Bitcoin’s defining attributes, while adding robust privacy technology. HeartSciences is a healthcare information technology company advancing the use of ECG/EKGs through the integration of artificial intelligence.

The two companies will combine in an all-stock transaction that is expected to close in the second half of 2026.

The team was led by M&A partner Jackie Cohen and M&A counsel Tyler Silvey, capital markets partner Christopher Capuzzi and counsel Elise Corey, tax partner Scott Pinarchick and tax counsel Michael Mendel, executive compensation & employee benefits partner Renata Ferrari, health care partner Jennifer Romig, IP transactions partner Jordan Altman, and life sciences regulatory & compliance partner Josh Oyster.