Key Notes
- Ondo plans to open its first pre-IPO market this week, starting with tokenized exposure to an unnamed private AI company.
- Eligible non-US investors will be able to trade the notes 24/7, while access remains restricted to permitted jurisdictions.
- The notes provide economic exposure through a separate issuer and do not confer ownership or shareholder rights in the referenced company.
Ondo Finance plans to open its first pre-IPO trading market this week, giving eligible non-US investors round-the-clock access to tokenized exposure to a private artificial intelligence company.
The company announced Ondo Private Markets on October 5. It has not identified the first business or given an exact trading start date.
The offering extends Ondo’s tokenization business into companies that have yet to list publicly. Its initial product will be a tradable note linked to a private company’s economic performance, with additional sectors planned as the platform expands.
What Investors Will Actually Hold
According to the company’s October 6 release, the notes are obligations of a separate issuer. They do not make their holders shareholders in the referenced company or confer a right to receive its underlying shares.
Each note’s payout is tied to the per-share value realized on the referenced company’s common shares at a qualifying liquidity event. That structure makes the contractual payout terms central to the exposure.
The distinction matters across the broader tokenization market. The SEC’s investor guide separates securities issued directly on a blockchain, custodial interests in existing securities, and third-party instruments that reference another company’s securities. Those models can give holders substantially different rights even when the tokens are described using similar language.
A January 28 SEC staff statement also explains that third-party tokenization can introduce exposure to the intermediary’s bankruptcy or other risks. A linked security can track another security’s value without becoming an obligation of that underlying company. The statement provides a general framework; it is not an approval of Ondo’s offering.
24/7 Trading Has a Specific Meaning
Ondo says eligible holders will be able to trade the notes on secondary markets, keep them in their own wallets and transfer them to other eligible holders. Secondary trading is intended to provide a way to reduce or exit a position before the referenced company reaches a liquidity event.
That promise concerns the availability of trading. It does not guarantee that a buyer will be available at a particular price or that the issuer will redeem a note immediately. A secondary sale transfers the position to another investor; the note’s eventual contractual payout is a separate process.
Ondo’s existing public-market infrastructure offers useful context. On June 25, it introduced 24/7 minting and redemption for six stock and ETF tokens, including exposures to the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100, Nvidia and Tesla. That update expanded an earlier service in which tokens could move around the clock while minting and redemption paused over weekends.
The private-market announcement describes continuous secondary trading. It does not establish an equivalent instant-redemption service for the new notes. The trading window and the mechanism for converting a token into cash are separate features of the product.
Access Depends on Eligibility
The offering is restricted to eligible non-US persons in permitted jurisdictions. Living outside the United States is not, by itself, a complete statement of eligibility. Ondo’s release prohibits purchases from within the United States and purchases made for the account or benefit of US persons.
Ian De Bode, identified in the release as Ondo’s acting CEO and president, framed the launch around expanding access to businesses that remain outside public markets. The underlying opportunity is substantial: an April 2024 Apollo analysis found that 87% of US companies with more than $100 million in trailing annual revenue were privately held.
That figure measures companies by count within a defined revenue group. It is historical research, rather than a fresh assessment of all US businesses or a forecast of returns from the new tokens.
A Broader Push Into Private Markets
The launch follows Ondo’s September 24 portfolio announcement. Its first three Intelligent Portfolios use strategies developed by BlackRock for Ondo, combining tokenized stocks and ETFs in a single token with scheduled rebalancing. CoinScreamer covered those portfolio tokens, which address diversified public-market allocation rather than exposure to an individual private business.
Other platforms are pursuing the same broader pool of unlisted companies. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev recently outlined plans to expand its stock-token lineup and subsequently introduce private-company exposures. As CoinScreamer reported, Tenev did not specify a launch date or the final structure of those products.
Ondo’s roadmap includes robotics, cybersecurity, biotech and infrastructure after the initial AI-linked market. For this week’s rollout, the key details still to be disclosed include the referenced company, the precise opening date and the first trading venues.
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