ARK Invest puts venture fund on Ethereum rails with Securitize

ARK Invest will offer its venture fund through blockchain infrastructure built by Securitize, the two firms said on September 24. Tokenized interests in the ARK Venture Fund, known as ARKVX, will be available on Ethereum at release, with Securitize handling onchain issuance and the investor experience, the announcement states.

The fund invests across private and public companies tied to disruptive technology. Its portfolio includes stakes in OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe and Databricks, among other holdings, though the firms cautioned that holdings change over time. Eligible investors who buy in receive a blockchain-based record of their interest in the fund, not shares of those companies directly.

"Tokenizing the ARK Venture Fund puts our conviction in the evolution, if not revolution, of capital markets into practice," ARK founder, CEO and CIO Cathie Wood said in the release. She called the launch a natural extension of the firm's mission to widen access to technology-driven innovation and pointed to Securitize's regulated infrastructure as the reason for the partnership.

Securitize chief executive Carlos Domingo framed the appeal around diversification. "If you don't know whether OpenAI or Anthropic are gonna win the AI race, here you get both of them in a diversified pool," he told CoinDesk TV, CoinDesk reported on September 24. Domingo added that the underlying assets stay private while the end investor's position becomes liquid in form.

That distinction matters because ARKVX is not an exchange-traded product. It is an actively managed closed-end interval fund launched in September 2022, built to hold private and public equity together. Investors cannot sell on demand; they exit through periodic repurchase offers that can be oversubscribed. The announcement repeats the standing disclosure that the shares are not listed, no secondary market is expected to develop and investments carry risk of loss.

The economics around the fund help explain the timing. ARKVX held roughly $1.3 billion in assets by late June, Bitcoin.com wrote in its September 24 account. Net asset value stood near $60.50 on September 23, roughly triple the near-$20 level at launch, before adjusting for share classes and distributions. Approximate net returns ran 61 percent in 2023, 7 percent in 2024, 56 percent in 2025 and about 32 percent so far in 2026, with a net expense ratio near 2.90 percent.

The fund's target mix sits around 80 percent private holdings and 20 percent public, with quarterly repurchase windows covering about 5 percent of outstanding shares and proration when demand exceeds supply. Its 20.21 percent return in the second quarter of 2026 owed much to SpaceX and Anthropic as leading contributors, the same account noted. Private valuations can still swing sharply when portfolio companies raise fresh capital.

The deal extends a relationship that started with money. ARK made a strategic investment in Securitize in October 2025, committing the pair to pushing regulated products onto blockchain rails. Securitize, which lists on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SECZ and reported about $5 billion in assets under management as of August 2026, counts Apollo, BlackRock, BNY, Hamilton Lane, KKR and VanEck among its asset-manager partners, according to the release.

Markets reacted quickly. Securitize shares rose as much as 15 percent after the news to a fresh high since the June public debut, CoinDesk added, nearly doubling across a week that included the Securities and Exchange Commission's September 17 innovation exemption for tokenized stock trading. The firm plans to publish a daily net asset value for the tokenized interests and to make them tradable on blockchain-based venues.

The launch fits a wider Wall Street pattern. Early tokenization work centered on Treasuries and money-market products such as BlackRock's BUIDL and Franklin Templeton's BENJI, while managers now push into equities and private markets. Citi analysts have projected tokenized securities could reach $5.5 trillion by 2030 in their base case. The ARK release does not specify a minimum investment, subscription mechanics or a secondary venue for the tokenized interests.

Eligible investors can find the fund's prospectus and offering documents through ARK's fund site and Securitize's ARKVX page at securitize.io/arkvx, the announcement states. Other networks may follow the Ethereum debut, the firms said, without naming them.