A new buyer has emerged for Summit National Bank in Hulett, Wyo., after other sales efforts failed to close.
Mode Eleven, the bank’s bankrupt holding company, recently received an offer from Kraken co-founder Arjun Sethi to buy the bank for $5.5 million, according to bankruptcy court documents. The offer includes a $750,000 nonrefundable deposit that can be used to provide an immediate capital infusion to Summit.
The proposed sale marks the latest turn in a long-running effort to keep Summit from being seized and closed by regulators.
Mode Eleven said Sethi’s offer is a “higher and better bid” than the two earlier proposals. The $5.5 million purchase price exceeds a prior bid from Marek Forysiak by $2 million and is more than twice what was offered by Greg Jacobson, according to the filing.
The company said the $750,000 deposit is critical because it would be available to provide “immediate and critically necessary” capital to the bank regardless of whether the sale ultimately closes.
Summit’s condition remains precarious. A court filing said the bank’s capital ratio is likely to fall below 2% before mid-June.
The new bid follows months of failed sale attempts.
Victor Remsha initially won a July 2025 auction with a bid of about $5.5 million. While a later sale motion was pending, Mode Eleven obtained court approval to use part of his earnest money to inject capital into Summit. The company downstreamed $372,500 to the bank, according to the filing.
After the Remsha transaction failed to close, Mode Eleven sought approval of a private sale to Jacobson, who was the third-place bidder in the July auction.
While the Jacobson sale motion was pending, the company received an offer from Forysiak, who was designated as the backup bidder. At a Feb. 18 hearing, the bankruptcy court allowed Jacobson and Forysiak to submit sealed bids. Mode Eleven later designated Forysiak as the successful bidder and Jacobson as the backup bidder.
The bankruptcy court entered an order on March 3 approving the Forysiak bid as the successful bid and the Jacobson bid as the second-highest bid. Mode Eleven extended the outside closing date for the Forysiak bid to June 2.
But neither transaction closed by a June 2 deadline, and Mode Eleven terminated both agreements.
The bank has been under pressure since Mode Eleven shut down Summit’s Banking-as-a-Service platform and tried to recapitalize in late 2024. That recapitalization deal fell through in April 2025.
In an earlier filing, Mode Eleven’s CEO asked the bankruptcy court to approve a sale quickly, warning that the bank could otherwise be seized and closed by regulators.