Ark Invest Seeks to Launch Venture Fund

Proposed product would invest in the public, privately placed or restricted securities of companies involved in “disruptive innovation,” including blockchain companies and bitcoin

article-image

Ark CEO Cathie Wood | Blockworks exclusive art by Axel Rangel

share

key takeaways

  • The Ark Venture Fund may invest in companies that “develop, use or rely on” blockchain technologies, as well as the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC)
  • Proposed interval fund would conduct quarterly repurchase offers of the fund’s shares

Ark Invest has filed to launch a venture fund that would invest in companies involved in disruptive innovation, including those related to crypto and blockchain technologies.

The New York-based investment firm has nine exchange-traded funds trading in the US with combined assets of roughly $22 billion.

But the new fund will be structured as an interval fund, meaning it would conduct quarterly repurchase offers for an expected 5% of the fund’s shares, according to a disclosure filed Thursday.

It would invest in public, as well as privately placed or restricted, securities. The fund has a minimum initial investment of $1,000.

Such companies the Ark Venture Fund seeks to invest in include those involved in revolutionizing genomics and transforming automation and energy usage, as well as businesses focused on artificial intelligence, financial technology and the next generation of the internet.

This comprises companies that “develop, use or rely on” blockchain technologies, the filing notes. The fund may also have exposure to cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, indirectly through an investment in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC).

An Ark spokesperson declined to comment further on the proposed fund.

Bloomberg Intelligence Analyst James Seyffart said in a Twitter post that the interval fund structure makes sense for Ark’s investment strategy.

“Can buy semi-private investments, control inflows & outflows, close the fund,” he wrote in the tweet. “All of this will allow Ark to dig deeper into smaller names and worry a bit less about liquidity risk.”

Ark Invest and 21Shares in June filed for a physically backed bitcoin ETF, a type of product that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has not yet approved. More recently, the firm teamed up with 21Shares in an effort to bring a bitcoin futures-based ETF to market.

Ark founder and CEO Cathie Wood said in November 2020 at a virtual Barron’s conference that she believes bitcoin could hit $500,000 in the long-term. She shared bullish comments about crypto technologies more broadly during a Jan. 25 webinar.

“We do think that decentralized finance will usurp the role of most financial services companies today,” she noted as part of the discussion with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes.

Ark’s “Big Ideas” report published last month predicts that ether’s market capitalization — currently at roughly $345 billion — could exceed $20 trillion in the next 10 years.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

Ethena Labs is leaping from its flagship synthetic dollar, USDe, to a full product suite—USDtb, iUSDe, and the Arbitrum-based Converge Chain—designed to marry crypto-native yields with TradFi-grade compliance. Our analysis shows how expanding into CME, ETF options, and tokenized Treasuries could lift protocol revenue from sub-$500 million in a bear case to several billion dollars if favorable regulation and institutional adoption align.

article-image

The L1’s Interwoven Stack is the most opinionated tech stack yet

article-image

Bitcoin is still rising, 11 years after the documentary film The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin

article-image

Arch Labs CEO told Blockworks that the team plans to launch a native token, but declined to give details

article-image

CEO Mike Silagadze tells Blockworks that the US is “open for business” and why its DeFi bank offering is the first of many

article-image

Doing one thing well and leaving everything else out is often what disruptive technologies do best