Cathie Wood Takes Ark Invest’s $1.3B Venture Fund Onchain

A $1.3 Billion Venture Fund Gets an Ethereum Wrapper

Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest is taking a money stuffed with immoderate of technology’s astir intimately watched backstage companies and putting its ownership infrastructure connected Ethereum. The ARK Venture Fund, oregon ARKVX, had grown to astir $1.3 cardinal successful assets by precocious June and holds stakes successful companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, and Databricks.

On Thursday, Ark Invest and Securitize announced that eligible investors volition beryllium capable to entree a tokenized mentation of the money done Securitize. However, investors aren’t abruptly getting blockchain-native OpenAI oregon Anthropic shares; they’re getting an onchain practice of interests successful the money that owns them.

What Actually Goes Onchain

Securitize volition handle ARKVX’s onchain issuance and capitalist infrastructure, with the tokenized money launching connected Ethereum. In plain English, the blockchain furniture changes however eligible investors tin clasp and interact with their money interest, not what sits wrong the portfolio. That favoritism matters due to the fact that ARKVX isn’t an ETF. Originally launched connected Sept. 23, 2022, it is an actively managed closed-end interval money built to clasp some backstage and nationalist companies.

Its people premix is astir 80% backstage and 20% public, and investors mostly can’t simply dump shares whenever they please. The money alternatively offers quarterly repurchase windows for astir 5% of outstanding shares, with requests taxable to proration if excessively galore investors caput for the exit astatine once.

Cathie Wood Puts the Tokenization Bet Into Practice

“Tokenizing the ARK Venture Fund puts our condemnation successful the evolution, if not revolution, of superior markets into practice,” said Cathie Wood, founder, CEO and CIO of ARK Invest. “Based connected our research, tokenization has the imaginable to reshape fundamentally the mode that investors entree and enactment successful some backstage and nationalist fiscal markets.”

The Ark Invest laminitis added:

“Making the ARK Venture Fund disposable onchain is simply a earthy hold of our ngo to democratize entree to technologically enabled disruptive innovation. Because it has built the regulated infrastructure to assistance marque that imaginativeness a reality, we are excited to spouse with Securitize successful taking this important measurement forward.”

Wood’s Ark Invest had already invested strategically successful Securitize successful October 2025, truthful Thursday’s determination didn’t precisely travel retired of the blue. The latest determination turns that narration into an operating product.

The Fund Had Quite a Run Before Going Onchain

ARKVX’s NAV began adjacent $20 and stood astir $60.50 connected Sept. 23, 2026, astir tripling since inception earlier accounting for share-class and organisation differences. The thrust wasn’t smooth, however. Approximate NAV returns were 61% successful 2023, 7% successful 2024, 56% successful 2025, and astir 32% truthful acold this twelvemonth done precocious September.

Ark Invest’s ARKVX via Tradingview connected Sept. 24, 2026. 1-week timeframe.

The money besides carries a astir 2.90% nett disbursal ratio and constricted liquidity, portion valuations of backstage holdings tin determination sharply erstwhile companies rise caller money. On the different hand, that aforesaid private-company vulnerability helped ARKVX station a 20.21% instrumentality successful the 2nd 4th of 2026, with Ark Invest identifying firms similar SpaceX and Anthropic arsenic its biggest contributors.

Now, a money built partially astir companies pushing exertion into unfamiliar territory is getting its ain technological wrapper. The assets wrong stay the same. The rails astir them are changing.