Ondo Finance officially launched Ondo Private Markets on October 6, 2026, extending its tokenization franchise from US Treasuries and public equities into private company exposure through tokenized notes linked to a pre-IPO artificial intelligence company.

The platform issues notes whose payoff ties to the per-share value of the AI firm's common stock at a qualifying liquidity event such as an IPO or acquisition. The instruments carry no shareholder or voting rights and do not represent equity.

They rank as obligations of the issuer, meaning holders assume credit risk on the vehicle itself in addition to price exposure to the underlying business.

Acting CEO Ian De Bode anchored the launch in a structural gap. "87% of US companies generating more than $100 million in revenue remain private," De Bode said, according to Ondo's announcement. The statistic frames the company's pitch that wealth formation has migrated beyond public markets.

How the notes are structured

Each tokenized note mirrors the underlying common stock's per-share value at a qualifying liquidity event. The note sits in the same family of products Ondo has already deployed for tokenized Treasuries and US-listed equities, where the firm reports total value locked above $3.7 billion across more than 1 million cumulative holders.

The first AI-linked notes will begin secondary trading on a 24/7 basis during the week of October 6, 2026. Continuous trading stands in marked contrast to private share transactions, which typically require manual settlement and extended closing timelines measured in months. Ondo has not disclosed assets under management or committed capital for the platform at launch, leaving near-term market impact unclear.

Geographic and eligibility limits

Ondo is offering the notes only to non-US investors in jurisdictions where the structure is permitted. The restriction leaves the largest natural buyer pool for US-domiciled venture-backed exposure outside the immediate distribution base.

Any future expansion of US eligibility would function as an early read on how regulators treat issuer-obligation notes backed by private company equity.

The structure departs from prior Ondo vehicles by referencing an equity claim while depending on the issuer's promise to settle. That dual dependency places the issuer-credit question at the front of any due diligence process.

The layered risk investors absorb

Because the notes are issuer obligations rather than direct equity, holders face two stacked bets. The first is on the trajectory of the AI company toward a qualifying liquidity event. The second is on the issuer's ability to perform when that event arrives.

An underlying company that appreciates sharply still produces a loss if the vehicle defaults or restructures before settlement. That dynamic separates the new offering from Ondo's prior tokenized Treasuries and public-equity products.

Sectors queued behind AI

The company's pipeline goes beyond the initial AI name. Ondo has signaled upcoming tokenized note offerings across robotics, cybersecurity, biotech, infrastructure, defense, energy and space.

Each new sector carries a different disclosure regime for the underlying private company. The variability may complicate the standardized note structure Ondo is deploying for the AI-linked launch.

Pricing for the first AI-linked notes will surface during secondary trading in launch week. That price discovery will set an early benchmark for the issuers Ondo selects across the seven follow-on sectors and inform how comparable vehicles are received as the platform broadens.