- ARK Invest tokenized the ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX) on Ethereum in partnership with Securitize
- Eligible investors gain blockchain-based access to a portfolio that includes stakes in OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, and Databricks
- Shares remain illiquid, available only through periodic repurchase offers that may be oversubscribed, with no secondary market expected
ARK Invest, the asset manager led by Cathie Wood, tokenized its ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX) on the Ethereum network in partnership with tokenization platform Securitize, according to a joint press release. The move brings one of ARK’s closed-end interval funds, which invests in a mix of private and public companies focused on disruptive innovation, onto blockchain-based infrastructure for the first time.
Eligible investors will get blockchain-based access to the fund’s holdings through Securitize’s tokenization infrastructure. The fund’s portfolio includes stakes in OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, and Databricks, among other companies, giving tokenholders indirect exposure to a set of privately held technology companies that are otherwise difficult for individual investors to access directly.
The tokenized structure does not change the fund’s underlying liquidity terms. ARKVX remains a closed-end interval fund, meaning shares are available only through periodic repurchase offers that can be oversubscribed, and Securitize does not expect a secondary market to develop for the tokenized shares in the near term. Tokenization in this case changes how the fund is recorded and accessed on the back end rather than making the underlying private-market holdings any more liquid.
“Tokenizing the ARK Venture Fund puts our conviction in the evolution, if not revolution, of capital markets into practice,” said Cathie Wood, ARK’s founder and chief executive. Securitize chief executive Carlos Domingo said the move “demonstrates how leading asset managers can use tokenization to move established investment products onto modern capital markets infrastructure.”
The tokenization adds ARK to a growing list of asset managers experimenting with putting existing fund structures on public blockchains, following similar moves by other issuers seeking to modernize back-office recordkeeping for funds that hold hard-to-access private company stakes. ARK said Ethereum will support the tokenized fund initially, without ruling out additional network support later.
Securitize has built out a track record of tokenizing institutional products beyond ARKVX, including a fund offering tokenized exposure to private equity firm KKR, and has positioned itself as infrastructure that established asset managers can plug into rather than a competing fund issuer in its own right. ARK’s decision to use that infrastructure, rather than building tokenization capability internally, reflects a broader pattern of traditional managers outsourcing the technical work of putting funds onchain to specialist platforms.
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