TL;DR:
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) granted the exemptive regulatory order requested by ARK Investment Management for its closed-end vehicle, ARK Venture Fund.
- The fund managed $562 million in total reported assets as of January 31, 2026, under its continuous offering operational framework.
- The structure introduces a share class based on distributed ledger technology (DLT) alongside a traditional class designed to trade on national exchanges.
The SEC granted regulatory approval authorizing ARK Venture Fund to issue tokenized fund shares. The regulatory body’s decision concluded the administrative proceeding initiated after the deadline to request public hearings expired on September 18, 2026.
With this ruling, the investment management firm led by Cathie Wood amends its previous November 2025 order to enable a dual institutional and retail participation model. The document issued by the SEC details that the unlisted fund will implement two additional share classes.
On one hand, the designated Exchange Class was designed to trade on regulated national stock exchanges under a standard next-business-day (T+1) financial settlement cycle. On the other hand, the tokenized class will record direct title ownership via distributed ledger technology.
The technical filing report reveals that secondary transactions for this digital class may settle in real time or on the same day (T+0). Official data indicates that such bilateral transfers will occur exclusively between wallets previously admitted to an institutional whitelist or through Alternative Trading Systems (ATS) registered under Regulation ATS.
Regulatory framework and technical architecture of the issuances
The asset manager structured the legal application under Sections 6(c), 18, and 17(d) of the Investment Company Act of 1940, along with Rules 23c-3 and 17d-1. Legal counsel was coordinated by the international firm Dechert LLP, according to filing records.
The issuance of digital units will be executed at net asset value (NAV) without direct sales loads charged at the time of subscription. Industry reports indicate this setup aims to avoid intermediation frictions typical of traditional venture capital funds.
Expenses tied to the tokenization agent and transfer agent fees will be allocated independently to this specific class. Currently, The Bank of New York Mellon serves as the fund’s official custodian, administrator, and transfer agent, according to the audited semi-annual report.
The formal application clarified that ARK did not seek authorization to list shares on decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. Regulatory filing data shows that the architecture mandates strict adherence to anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) protocols before validating any digital wallet on the network.
The portfolio of ARK Venture Fund reported $562 million in total assets as of January 31, 2026. By May 15, 2026, its existing shares were valued at a composite amount of approximately $912.6 million across the non-affiliated holder market.
Among the fund’s strategic holdings, an equity stake in Securitize stands out, supplemented by a $10 million convertible note bearing a 5% coupon with maturity scheduled for September 2028. Securitize serves as the technical transfer agent in tokenized initiatives such as BlackRock’s BUIDL fund.
Data from analytics platform RWA.xyz tracked the global tokenized venture capital and private equity sector at approximately $2.35 billion across 25 assets and 7,263 holders in early September 2026.
The market now looks ahead to the next administrative milestone set by the SEC for November 3, 2026—the deadline established to receive public comments regarding the proposed comprehensive overhaul of rules governing transfer agents on blockchain registries.
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