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Ondo Finance has introduced Ondo Private Markets, a platform offering tokenized notes linked to private companies before they go public. The first product will reference a private artificial intelligence company, with secondary trading expected to begin this week.
Eligible investors outside the United States will be able to trade around the clock. The notes provide financial exposure without granting ownership or shareholder rights in the underlying business.
Ondo announced that its first offering will track a leading pre-IPO AI company. Investors will gain exposure through digital notes issued on a blockchain. Each note’s payout will depend on the value per share realized for the company’s common stock at a qualifying liquidity event.
Such an event can include an initial public offering. The notes represent obligations of their issuer, so holders have a contractual claim rather than a stake in the referenced company. Buying the tokens does not give investors voting rights or other rights attached to company shares.
Ian De Bode, Ondo Finance’s acting chief executive officer and president, said retail investors have limited access to private businesses. He cited figures showing that 87% of companies with more than USD 100 million in revenue remain privately held.
“Ondo Private Markets is built to change that,” De Bode said.
The platform will offer notes linked to individual companies. This structure allows eligible investors to select the businesses they want exposure to, rather than purchase a fund that holds several private companies.
Ondo said the notes will support 24/7 secondary-market trading. Eligible investors can buy, sell or adjust their positions before the referenced company completes an IPO or another qualifying liquidity event. Trading will operate outside regular stock-market hours.
Holders can keep the tokens in their own wallets and transfer them to other eligible investors. Ondo designed the notes to work with supported blockchain services, including decentralized finance platforms. Investors can move their positions between supported wallets and trading venues.
Access will remain limited to eligible non-U.S. investors in permitted jurisdictions. The offering excludes U.S. persons and investors located in the United States. Investors must meet the qualification requirements that apply to each product.
Secondary trading allows holders to change their positions before the event that determines the note’s contractual payout. That payout will remain tied to the per-share value realized on the referenced company’s common shares under the product terms.
Ondo plans to add private companies in robotics, cybersecurity, biotech and infrastructure after the initial AI offering. The expansion will extend its product range beyond tokenized public stocks and U.S. Treasury investments.
The company said its tokenized stock and Treasury platforms together held USD 3.7 billion in total value locked and had recorded more than one million cumulative holders. Ondo Private Markets will use the infrastructure supporting those existing products.
The launch follows Ondo’s July partnership with Japan’s SBI Holdings to tokenize Japanese equities through Ondo Global Markets. SBI planned to distribute Ondo products across its network and use its JPYSC stablecoin for settlement and collateral.
The AI-linked offering will be the platform’s first market. Ondo expects its tokenized notes to begin secondary trading this week, with products referencing companies in the other planned sectors to follow.
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