Ondo Finance has launched Ondo Private Markets, offering tokenized notes that provide economic exposure to an undisclosed pre-IPO AI company. The first notes are expected to begin trading this week.

Notes without share ownership, payouts on a liquidity event

Payouts on the notes are tied to the value realized per common share of the reference company upon the occurrence of a qualifying liquidity event. The instrument provides economic participation without direct ownership of the company's shares.

Self-custody and 24/7 secondary market

Eligible investors can hold the notes in their own wallets and trade them on secondary markets around the clock. Following the initial issuance, Ondo plans to launch products linked to companies in robotics, cybersecurity, biotech, infrastructure, and other sectors.

Context: RWA growth and interest in private markets

According to the company, Ondo Stocks—a platform for tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs—has over $1 billion in TVL and offers more than 450 tokenized securities. In April, venture fund Robinhood invested $75 million in OpenAI common shares for retail access via a public closed-end fund. In June, Citi was preparing to launch a blockchain platform for trading private company shares.