SEC Clears ARK Venture Fund For Tokenized And Exchange-Traded Share Classes

TL;DR The SEC granted ARK Venture Fund amended exemptive relief covering two new share classes. The structure allows an Exchange Class and a Tokenized Class whose ownership can be recorded through distributed-ledger technology. The order permits the structure, but ARK has not announced that the new shares are already trading. ARK Venture Fund has secured an SEC order that gives it room to experiment with two very different distribution rails for the same underlying investment product. Release No. IC-36333 grants ARK Venture Fund and ARK Investment Management amended exemptive relief under the Investment Company Act, allowing the fund to create an Exchange Class and a Tokenized Class. One Fund, Two New Ways To Hold It The Exchange Class is designed for listing on a national securities exchange. The Tokenized Class goes a step further. Ownership records for those shares can be maintained using distributed-ledger technology, with trading potentially taking place through alternative trading systems. That is a meaningful distinction from simply putting a fund ticker onchain as a marketing layer. The SEC order addresses the legal structure needed for a registered fund to maintain a token...