ARK Invest awards local distribution mandate

Cathie Wood's ARK Investment Management has chosen Associate Global Partners (AGP) to help distribute its venture capital strategy to Australian wholesale investors.

ARK Venture Fund, which is set to launch in Australia this month, is an actively managed portfolio of private companies that align with ARK's "disruptive innovation" investment theme.

It aims to capture long-term growth through identification and management of leading assets across major emerging innovation themes, whether a company is private or public.

The fund holds between 25 and 50 companies, some of which include Anthropic and prediction market platform Kalshi.

SpaceX is the biggest holding at 17% followed by OpenAI at 11.5%.

Incepted in 2022, the fund has a weighted average market capitalisation of US$340 billion as at March-end and charges a management fee of 2.75%. In the last year, it returned 65% p.a.

According to the factsheet, the ARK Venture Fund is an interval fund that offers quarterly liquidity for investors. Up to 5% of net asset value (NAV) of the fund can be redeemed by investors each quarter.

AGP chief executive and managing director Marty Switzer said: "This is an exciting announcement, both for AGP and for wholesale investors looking to access some of the world's most disruptive private companies."

Wood founded ARK Investment Management in 2014. She previously spent 12 years at AllianceBernstein as investments chief of the Global Thematic Strategies fund where she managed over US$5 billion.

In August 2017, Nikko Asset Management (now Amova Asset Management) acquired a small stake in ARK Investment Management and launched a separately managed account shortly after in Australia.

Muzinich & Co. recently selected AGP to debut its actively managed private credit ETF on the ASX.

AGP acts as investment manager while Muzinich & Co. is the Responsible Entity.