ARK Invest tokenizes $1.3B venture fund on Ethereum

ARK Investment Management LLC initiated a process to introduce a tokenized share class for its ARK Venture Fund by filing an application with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The proposal sought to use distributed ledger technology to track ownership and allow for trading on SEC-registered alternative trading systems and peer-to-peer transfers between approved wallets.

Following regulatory developments, ARK Invest and Securitize launched the tokenized version of the ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX) on the Ethereum blockchain. The fund, which manages approximately $1.3 billion in net assets, provides eligible U.S. investors with blockchain-based exposure to a portfolio of private and public technology companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, SpaceX, Stripe, and Databricks.

Under this structure, investors can access tokenized interests using USDC, with a minimum initial investment of $500 and subsequent additions starting from $5. Securitize manages the on-chain issuance and investor infrastructure, while BNY Mellon serves as the custodian. Each token is backed one-to-one by fund shares.

The fund continues to operate as a closed-end interval fund. Consequently, investors do not have immediate liquidity and are subject to quarterly repurchase offers, which are limited to 5% of outstanding shares. ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood stated that tokenization could “fundamentally reshape how investors participate in private and public financial markets.”