ARK Investment Management has requested permission from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to allow its ARK Venture Fund to offer a tokenized share class. The filing could pave the way for blockchain ownership and secondary trading for a registered interval fund, though ARK currently has no plans to introduce the new share class immediately.
The company filed a Second Amended Application with the SEC on August 7, seeking to modify a previous order that prohibited the fund from offering shares in the unlisted category without a secondary market. The SEC released a notice concerning the issue on August 24, with hearing requests due by September 18.
The ARK Venture Fund is a non-diversified closed-end interval fund that invests in public and private entities focused on disruptive innovations. Its existing offerings include Class D, Class S, and Class U shares. Under the new application, ARK aims to add an Exchange Class and a Tokenized Class, both of which would feature no sales load, though exact ongoing fee rates have not yet been specified.
The proposed Tokenized Class would use distributed-ledger technologies to track ownership. These shares could be distributed through registered broker-dealers or directly by the fund’s transfer agent, and they may trade on SEC-registered Regulation ATS systems, other quotation media, or peer-to-peer via whitelisted wallets. Additionally, certain tokenized transactions may settle on a T+0 basis, compared to a T+1 basis for the Exchange Class.
Data from RWA.xyz indicates that tokenized equity and venture capital distribution reached $2.35 billion across 25 assets and 7,263 holders as of September 8. PwC forecasts that the total value of tokenized investment assets worldwide will grow by an average of 41% annually to reach $715 billion by 2030.
