Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest is tokenizing its ARK Venture Fund with Securitize, putting it on the Ethereum blockchain. The fund owns stakes in OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX.
OpenAI and Anthropic do not trade on any stock exchange. ARK and Securitize announced the move on Sept. 24. Bloomberg reported the fund’s size at about $1.3 billion.
What the ARK Venture Fund Onchain Offers Investors
Tokenizing means recording ownership as a digital token on a blockchain, a public ledger anyone can check. Eligible investors buying through Securitize get exposure to the fund’s portfolio this way, according to the release.
That portfolio is mostly private. About 78% of the fund sat in companies without a public stock ticker as of August 31, ARK’s holdings file shows. SpaceX was the top position at 7.54%. OpenAI made up 5.26% and Anthropic 3.86%.
ARK first opened this door in September 2022. It launched the fund with a $500 minimum, calling venture capital a market long reserved for wealthy investors, its announcement said.
The catch is the exit. The fund is an interval fund, so it buys back shares only at set times. Its prospectus schedules those buybacks quarterly, and the release warns they may be oversubscribed. ARK says no secondary market is expected to develop.
Access also costs more. ARK’s fund page lists annual expenses of 2.9% after fee waivers.
Why ARK Is Betting on Tokenized Funds
A September 21 SEC order lets the fund offer a tokenized share class. That class may trade on alternative trading systems, which are private electronic venues outside stock exchanges.
“Based on our research, tokenization has the potential to reshape fundamentally the way that investors access and participate in both private and public financial markets,” said Cathie Wood, founder, CEO and CIO of Ark Invest.
Securitize has done this before. It tokenized BlackRock’s BUIDL fund on Ethereum in March 2024. ARK announced a strategic investment in Securitize in October 2025, and Securitize shares have rallied since the SEC opened a path for tokenized stock trading on Sept. 17.
The fund was already growing fast. Its net assets rose from $208 million in July 2025 to $558 million by January 2026, SEC filings show.
Source: BeInCrypto
