Nasdaq Ventures to Invest $100 Million in Payward, Kraken Parent

Nasdaq Ventures will invest $100 million in Payward, the parent company of Kraken, Nasdaq said in a press release on Thursday (Sept. 10). The funding is part of an expanded partnership between the companies covering tokenized equities infrastructure and market surveillance.

Expansion tied to Nasdaq Equity Token framework

The investment supports work on the Nasdaq Equity Token (NET) framework. Nasdaq expects NETs to launch in the second quarter of 2027, as part of a foundation for how tokenized equities can move across different market environments.

New market surveillance agreement

Alongside the tokenization effort, Payward will adopt Nasdaq’s market surveillance technology across its portfolio of trading venues. Nasdaq said the change will be implemented under a new market surveillance agreement.

Nasdaq and Payward align on faster settlement and liquidity

Nasdaq President Tal Cohen said the partnership reflects a focus on how capital and assets move across the financial system with durable liquidity. Payward Co-CEO Arjun Sethi described the scale of the U.S. clearing system, saying more than $2 trillion of stock trades run through it each day, with buys and sells net down by about 98%. He said the clearinghouse holds between $10 billion and $20 billion of collateral against what is left while it waits a day to settle.

Sethi added that cutting the wait from two days to one in 2024 released $3 billion, and that on-chain settlement removes the wait. He said the next phase is planned to advance Nasdaq Equity Tokens onto rails that do not close, with shareholder rights intact.

Prior partnership included tokenization gateway work

In March, Payward announced a tokenization-focused partnership with Nasdaq. The collaboration was set to develop an “equities transformation gateway” connecting tokenized equity capital markets with decentralized blockchain networks, using an equity token design intended to preserve issuer control, existing regulatory frameworks, and underlying share rights.

Why it matters

The $100 million investment and the planned NET launch in 2027 place Nasdaq and Payward on a path toward tokenized equity market infrastructure, while aligning trading oversight through Nasdaq surveillance technology.