ARK Venture Fund (ARKVX): $1.18 Billion, Repurchases at 1.5% and a Listed Share Class Waiting on the SEC

What ARKVX is, in one paragraph

ARK Venture Fund is sold to individual investors with a $500 minimum. It began operations on September 1, 2022 and is organized as a Delaware statutory trust. It is a non-diversified closed-end fund run as an interval fund: the annual report says it intends to make “quarterly offers to repurchase between 5% and 25% of its outstanding Shares at NAV,” and that this offer is a fundamental policy that cannot change without a shareholder vote. The prospectus says the fund expects to invest 20% to 90% of its assets in private companies and the rest in public securities, and caps investments in other private funds at 15% of net assets. Its shares are not listed on any exchange today, so the quarterly offer is the only exit. Unlike a non-traded BDC, the offer is not at the board's discretion each quarter; for the wider interval-fund universe see our list of interval funds.

Twelve repurchase offers: what the reports show

The table combines the repurchase results in the notes to three annual reports and one semiannual report with the NAV quoted in each offer notice (Form N-23C-3), taken on the date shown in the notice. “Share repurchased” is the percentage of shares outstanding; every offer was for 5.00%.

Two readings are possible and the filings do not decide between them. In September 2024 the fund repurchased 5.00%, exactly the offer amount. That is either a full fill of requests that happened to equal 5%, or the ceiling being hit and requests prorated. The offer terms say the fund “may (but is not obligated to)” add up to 2% more, and that if tendered shares exceed the amount offered, the fund “is required to repurchase the Shares tendered on a pro rata basis.” The reports show only what was bought, never what was asked. After September 2024 the percentage fell, to 1.50% and 1.51% in the last two reported offers, while shares outstanding were growing quickly. The count of shares bought did not fall: 118,596 and 160,709 shares, against 128,863 and 165,165 a year earlier.

The March and June 2026 offers belong to the fiscal year that ended July 31, 2026, so they should appear in the annual report for that year, which was filed on October 8 last year. The September 2026 offer ran from September 2 to September 30. Under the offer terms the pricing date can be up to 14 calendar days after the deadline, and payment follows within seven calendar days of pricing. Its result will not be public until the semiannual report for the six months to January 31, 2027.

Money in, money out

Repurchases were 15.2% of shares sold in the year to July 2025 and about 5.0% of dollars in the six months to January 2026 (our arithmetic). That is the reverse of the stress seen at private credit interval funds: here the quarterly offer is far from binding. It also means a holder's chance of being filled has been high so far, but the filings give no evidence about what happens if sentiment turns, because the fund has not yet faced a quarter in which requests exceeded 5% by a visible margin. Net assets show the scale of the inflows: $24.9 million at July 31, 2023, $64.0 million in 2024, $207.9 million in 2025 and $557.6 million at January 31, 2026 in the annual and semiannual reports, then $1,184.2 million at July 31, 2026 in Form N-PORT. At January 31, 2026, Class D held $557.0 million of the total; Class S held $0.5 million and Class U $11,546.

NAV per share and returns

NAV rose 76.8% from July 31, 2025 to August 31, 2026 (our arithmetic). The fund's own monthly total returns in Form N-PORT show how uneven that was: +3.66%, +20.23%, +1.26%, -4.08%, +13.42%, +1.91%, +6.04%, -2.57%, +3.66%, +3.25%, +12.44% and -6.34% from August 2025 to July 2026 (first share class listed, which matches the Class D six-month return). Compounded, those twelve months are about +62.9% (our arithmetic). A month of +20.23% on a fund that is mostly Level 3 probably reflects revaluations of private holdings rather than a quoted market move, though the filing does not attribute it. Level 3 marks are not quoted prices. Distributions have been small: $0.20 per share in fiscal 2024 and $0.10 in fiscal 2025, both from net realized gains, and none in the six months to January 2026. The prospectus says the fund intends to make annual distributions.

What it holds, and how much of it is Level 3

Form N-PORT labels each position with a fair value level. Level 1 is a quoted price; Level 3 is valued with inputs that are not observable. Summing the positions by level (our arithmetic) gives:

The share is falling because the fund is buying more listed shares: Level 1 positions were $365.4 million at July 31, 2026 (30.9% of net assets, our arithmetic), and one large position, SpaceX, is now marked Level 1 with a ticker. At April 30, 2026 SpaceX was held on two lines marked Level 3 totaling $95.1 million. At July 31, 2026 it was one line of 923,640 SpaceX Class A shares, ticker SPCX, at $100.1 million, marked Level 1, which is $108.37 a share (our arithmetic) and 8.45% of net assets. It was 5.3% of net assets in January 2024, 13.4% in April 2024 and 17.0% in January 2025 (our sums of the SpaceX lines). The July 2025 N-PORT shows $207.4 million of net assets against the $207.9 million in the audited annual report, a difference between the pre-audit and audited figures.

The ten largest lines at July 31, 2026

The same issuer often appears on several lines (different share series or SPV vehicles), so a line is not always an issuer. OpenAI is on four lines, three held directly and one through an SPV that the fund labels OpenAI, for $71.0 million or 6.0% of net assets (our sum). Databricks is on three lines for $26.4 million, 2.2% (our sum).

These ten lines add up to 36.4% of net assets (our sum), after a $34.6 million position in a Goldman Sachs Treasury money market fund (2.92%) that we left out. The fund holds 126 lines in total and calls itself non-diversified. Concentration has eased: SpaceX alone was 11.4% to 17.0% of net assets at every quarter-end from April 2024 to July 2025 (our sums), against 8.45% now. Two other features of the July 2026 report are new. Securities lending: Form N-PORT shows $30.0 million of securities on loan to Morgan Stanley at April 30, 2026 and $53.2 million at July 31, 2026, and the draft prospectus of September 25, 2026 names Morgan Stanley as exclusive borrower, with loans capped at 33 1/3% of total assets. Leverage: Form N-PORT reports no bank borrowings payable at July 31, 2026; the credit agreement with Texas Capital Bank allows up to $15,000,000.

Fees, loads and minimums

Reported expense ratios are higher than the limit because the adviser is absorbing the difference. Before waivers, Class D expenses were 9.33% of average net assets (annualized) in fiscal 2023, 5.32% in fiscal 2024, 4.39% in fiscal 2025 and 3.73% (annualized) in the six months to January 31, 2026, against 2.90% after waivers each time. The prospectus says the adviser cannot recoup what it waives, and the limit stays in place until the board ends it. It excludes costs of making investments, taxes, brokerage, acquired fund fees, litigation, offering costs and extraordinary expenses, so a holder's all-in cost can exceed the stated limit. The September 25, 2026 draft prospectus adds a deferred sales charge of up to 1.5% on Class S purchases of $250,000 or more that are repurchased within 12 months, and a policy of investing at least 80% of net assets in venture companies, vehicles that fund them and companies tied to the disruptive innovation theme. Neither appears in the October 2025 prospectus. The draft is not effective, and its fee tables are blank.

The listed and tokenized classes

This is the part no one else has laid out from the filings. The timeline, from the documents:

The order lets the fund offer “a class of shares listed on a national securities exchange” and a class of tokenized shares traded on alternative trading systems or quoted elsewhere. The notice adds the terms that matter to a holder:

• The listed class would be sold on the exchange at the market, with no sales load, and may carry distribution and shareholder services fees; no early withdrawal charge applies to the listed or tokenized classes.
• Prices on an exchange, an alternative trading system or in peer-to-peer transfers can differ from NAV: the fund must disclose that investors may pay more, or receive less, than NAV. The April prospectus warns that the shares “may be thinly traded” and that closed-end funds often trade at a discount to NAV.
• Holders of the other classes “would be able to exchange their shares for Exchange Class or Tokenized Class shares.” The notice does not say what price or fee applies to an exchange.
• Tokenized shares are recorded on a distributed ledger and held only in wallets the fund has approved after anti-money-laundering and identity checks.
• Quarterly repurchase offers continue: the April prospectus describes offers for 5% to 25% of each class, and the notice says the percentage repurchased is allocated by fund, not by class. The September 2026 N-23C-3 says there is “no assurance” every tendered share will be bought.

The Class X date of October 23, 2026 has been extended five times and the prospectus only says the fund “intends to apply” for the listing, so a listing is possible, not scheduled. What changes for an existing holder is the choice of exit, not the risk: today the exit is a quarterly offer at NAV with proration risk; a listed class would offer daily trading at a price that can sit above or below NAV, with the offer still available.

What a holder can do with this

• If you want to sell at NAV: the next notice should arrive around early December 2026, on the pattern of December 2 in 2024 and 2025, with a deadline near December 31. Requests go to the transfer agent by the deadline and can be withdrawn until then. The fund does not charge a processing fee, but a broker or adviser may. A repurchase can be a taxable event.
• If you hold a lot: the offer terms prorate oversubscribed offers and give priority only to holders of fewer than 100 shares who tender everything. A six-figure position is in the prorated pool. The fund has not shown proration so far, but the reports do not show requests either.
• If you are weighing a purchase: the NAV you buy at ($59.45 on August 31, 2026) includes marks that rose 76.8% in a year, and 69% of net assets is Level 3. Class S carries up to a 3.50% load. Expenses before waivers ran at 3.73% annualized.
• If you are watching for the listing: check Form 486BXT, Form 486BPOS and Form N-23C-3 on EDGAR for the cash price and ticker, and read how the exchange mechanics treat your class before converting.
• What would change the picture: the annual report for the year to July 31, 2026, which will show March and June 2026 repurchases, the full-year expense ratio and the audited NAV.

For other ways to hold private-market exposure, see how to invest in private equity and our comparison of evergreen fund redemptions. For the listed alternatives ARKVX is often compared with, read our Fundrise VCX review.

FAQ

All figures are from ARK Venture Fund's SEC filings read on EDGAR on October 7, 2026: annual reports on Form N-CSR (July 31, 2023, 2024 and 2025), the semiannual report to January 31, 2026, sixteen Form N-23C-3 repurchase notices (March 2023 to September 2026), fifteen Form N-PORT reports (filed March 2023 to September 18, 2026), the prospectus of October 27, 2025, the preliminary prospectuses of April 6 and September 25, 2026, five Form 486BXT filings, and the SEC notice of August 24, 2026 and order of September 21, 2026. The number of shares tendered in each offer is not disclosed. Level 3 shares, sums of lines and percentage changes are our arithmetic. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.