ARK Invest has transferred its flagship venture approach on-chain, tokenizing the ARK Venture Fund on Ethereum with Securitize to provide select investors with blockchain-enabled access to private firms including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Stripe. Announced September 24 the first of its kind for ARK, and one of the largest venture fund tokensations to date.
The Move Aligns With 2026 Driven Trends
Asset managers like ARK Venture Fund are using public blockchains as fund administration rails amid high demand for private AI infrastructure companies. Instead of tokenizing ownership in underlying companies, the ARK Venture Fund structure offers a tokenized investor interest in a regulated fund.
They are one of the largest venture fund tokenizations to date, the entity is available on 3rd-party investment platforms and gives a liquid stake in these legacy holdings. Ethereum offers the settlement layer for the fund’s $1.3bn venture portfolio, with tokenized share-class ARKVX trading on Securitize.
Source: The Daily Upside
ARK Venture Fund is an actively managed closed-end interval fund that as of end August 31, 2026 had circa $1.3bn net assets. Its portfolio generally comprises 2550 names and mixes private and public positions. Call latest disclosed weights including SpaceX (7.54%), OpenAI (5.26%), Anthropic (3.86%), also Stripe and Databricks, and Figure AI and a series of ‘public’ names like Tesla, Coinbase.
For investors, the ARK Venture Fund distinction is clear: exposure is to the fund, not directly to OpenAI or Anthropic equity. Blockchain represents current ownership of the ARK Venture Fund ARKVX. Issuance is by Securitize, managing $5B+ in tokenized assets, with subscriptions paid in USDC and tokens issued once NAV is set. Minimum via Securitize is $500, and ARK Venture Fund access remains limited to eligible investors, not a permissionless sale.
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Regulatory Approval is Not same as Liquidation
The news came after a regulatory milestone for the ARK Venture Fund: On Sept 21, the SEC issued a modified order allowing ARK Venture Fund ARKVX holdings to be tracked on a distributed ledger and trade through regulated alternative trading systems and quotation facilities.
As an interval fund, shares are only bought back through periodic offers, which can be oversubscribed, while Securitize does not foresee a secondary market soon. This isolates ARK Venture Fund from tokenised money market funds like BlackRock’s BUIDL, which offers daily redemption, and equates it to private-market infrastructure where tokenisation clarifies recordkeeping and programmable ownership rather than direct tradability.
Cathie Wood announced that trading ARK Venture Fund token makes the expectation for market development tangible, while Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo stated that it demonstrates the ability of visionary managers to transfer established products onto new rails. They invested in Securitize in October 2025, creating the core relationship behind the issuance.
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Implications for Private Markets and Infrastructure for Tokenisation
In crypto, the initiative prolongs Ethereum’s leadership as the settlement layer for compliant real-world assets. Securitize assets have helped tokens exist for BlackRock and Hamilton Lane, but ARK Venture Fund thrust tokenization into a spaceventure capitalwhere a disjointed transfer agency had historically excluded many institutions.
For qualifying investors, it offers a reduction of barriers for private AI investmentsat least for those previously limited to venture LP vehicles. For ecosystems, tokenization offers evidence that back-office modernization, not promotional tokens, is its use case. What now is determined by the pattern of adoption.
Source: Securitize
Key gauges are whether Securitize eventually moves ARKVX off Ethereum, whether an ATS benchmarks tokenized ARKVX for secondary trading, and whether quarterly buy demand for the asset remains as robust after an on-chain share repurchase program is available. The larger backdrop is an SEC system that in 2026 and beyond increasingly may be receptive to distributed-ledger recordkeeping.
If the repurchase capacity remains tight, on-chain access may not improve liquiditya risk investors should factor into their analysis. If it works, ARKVX might act as a blueprint for other venture funds aiming to expand eligible access without having to restructure, marrying private technology equity with the public blockchain.
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