Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest is moving its ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX) onto blockchain rails, partnering with Securitize to tokenize interests in a portfolio featuring high-profile stakes in OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, and Databricks. The announcement, made on September 24, 2026, marks a significant step in democratizing access to disruptive innovation, with tokenized fund interests initially set to launch on the Ethereum blockchain.
This initiative leverages an existing strategic relationship between ARK Invest and Securitize, reflecting a growing trend among Wall Street asset managers to integrate traditional financial products with blockchain technology. Investors will now gain exposure to a diversified pool of leading private technology companies through a more accessible, blockchain-based framework.
The ARK Venture Fund tokenization process
For Cathie Wood, ARK Invest’s Founder, CEO, and Chief Investment Officer, tokenizing the ARKVX fund directly aligns with her firm’s core mission. “Offering the ARK Venture Fund on-chain is a natural extension of our goal to democratize access to disruptive innovation,” Wood stated. She believes this move puts ARK’s conviction in the evolving capital markets into practice.
The ARK Venture Fund is an actively managed, non-diversified closed-end interval fund that invests in both private and publicly traded companies. As of June 30, 2026, private companies accounted for a substantial 74.15% of its portfolio market value. The fund’s net assets stood at approximately $1.3 billion.
Accessibility is a key driver for this tokenization effort. Eligible investors can access the fund through Securitize’s on-chain infrastructure with a minimum investment of just $500. Subscriptions, funded in USDC, require investors to complete identity and eligibility checks and register an approved wallet.
The Mechanics of On-Chain Investment
Securitize, the tokenization platform, will handle the on-chain issuance and manage the investor experience for ARKVX. Carlos Domingo, Co-Founder and CEO of Securitize, highlighted the advantage for investors seeking exposure to the competitive AI landscape. “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,” Domingo explained.
The tokenized interests will initially be available on Ethereum, though both firms have indicated potential expansion to other blockchain networks in the future. Investors will receive a blockchain-based representation of their interest in the fund, rather than direct ownership of the underlying assets. This approach maintains the privacy of the fund’s individual company stakes.
“The underlying assets will still remain private, but the investment of the end users will be liquid,” Domingo confirmed. Securitize also plans to provide a daily net asset value (NAV) and facilitate trading of these fund interests on blockchain-based markets.
It’s important to note, however, that while liquidity is enhanced, the fund’s shares are not listed on a traditional securities exchange, and a robust secondary market is not expected to develop immediately. Interval funds typically limit repurchases to a percentage of total outstanding shares, such as ARKVX’s 5% to 25% cap.
This initiative underscores how institutional investors are increasingly looking to apply blockchain solutions to traditional finance. The move to tokenize institutional demand is a clear signal of this trend.
Regulatory Tailwinds and Market Trends
The timing of this tokenization push is opportune, buoyed by recent regulatory developments. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently unveiled a five-year “innovation exemption.” This framework allows certain tokenized U.S. stocks to trade on specially designed on-chain venues, providing a clearer path for financial firms to experiment with blockchain-based securities.
ARK Invest isn’t alone in this venture; it joins a growing list of Wall Street firms exploring tokenization. Early efforts by major players like BlackRock, with its BUIDL fund, and Franklin Templeton, with BENJI, focused on U.S. Treasuries and money-market products. Now, the industry is expanding rapidly into equities and private markets, a significant shift for the financial landscape.
Market projections reinforce this trend. Citi analysts project that the tokenized securities market could swell to $5.5 trillion by 2030. The value of tokenized real-world assets has already surged over 400% since the beginning of 2025, reaching approximately $39 billion.
Securitize shares saw a notable jump of up to 15% following the news, reaching a fresh high since its public debut in June, nearly doubling in a week.
The potential for increased accessibility and enhanced liquidity through tokenization is attracting considerable attention. While altcoin protocol risks are often discussed, the focus here is on regulated, institutional adoption.
Strategic Holdings in AI and Tech Giants
A major draw of the ARKVX fund is its strategic holdings in some of the most innovative and rapidly growing private technology companies. As of May 31, 2026, the fund boasted significant stakes, including 11.38% in SpaceX, 8.48% in OpenAI, and 6.40% in Anthropic. Other key holdings include Tenstorrent Holdings, Kalshi, Replit, Ayar Labs, Figure AI, Absci Corp., and Cellares, alongside Stripe and Databricks.
OpenAI, the San Francisco-based public benefit corporation, is renowned for its generative AI models like ChatGPT. Released in November 2022, ChatGPT is widely credited with igniting the current AI boom and remains one of the world’s most visited websites.
OpenAI has raised approximately $180 billion in funding and achieved a post-money valuation of $852 billion in April 2026, with discussions reportedly underway for a new round that could push its valuation to $1.5 trillion.
Anthropic, a fierce competitor to OpenAI, has also seen meteoric growth. In May 2026, Anthropic secured a $65 billion Series H funding round, briefly surpassing OpenAI with a post-money valuation of $965 billion. The company reported being on track to generate over $65 billion in annualized revenue by August 2026, highlighting the intense competition and massive potential within the AI sector.
Beyond AI, the fund includes Stripe, an Irish-American multinational financial services and software company valued at $159 billion as of February 2026, which processed over $1.9 trillion in payment volume in 2025.
Databricks, a San Francisco-based data and AI company, closed a $5 billion funding round in August 2026 at a $190 billion valuation, reporting an annualized revenue run rate of $5.4 billion. These holdings underscore ARKVX’s focus on companies at the forefront of technological disruption.
Building on an Existing Partnership
The collaboration between ARK Invest and Securitize is not new; it deepens a relationship established last year when ARK made a strategic investment in Securitize. This earlier investment was explicitly aimed at advancing the institutional adoption of tokenized securities and broadening access to regulated investment products. It laid the crucial groundwork for today’s announcement.
Tom Staudt, President and COO of ARK Invest, views this tokenization as just the beginning. “This is our first step. So I don’t see this as the end of the road. The goal is certainly to tokenize many” of ARK’s funds, Staudt commented.
He pointed out that interval funds like ARKVX are more straightforward to tokenize initially, despite lacking the global accessibility of exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
As the tokenized securities market continues its rapid ascent, partnerships like the one between ARK Invest and Securitize will likely become more common. They represent a tangible shift in how investment products are structured, accessed, and managed, pushing the boundaries of traditional finance into a digitally native future. The long-term implications for investor access and market efficiency could be profound.