ARK Invest

ARK Investment Management LLC was formed in June 2013 and registered with the SEC as an investment adviser in January 2014. Its founder, Catherine D. Wood (Cathie Wood), had spent 12 years at AllianceBernstein as chief investment officer of Global Thematic Strategies; she joined Alliance Capital in 2001 from Tupelo Capital Management, after 18 years at Jennison Associates as chief economist, equity research analyst, portfolio manager and director.⁠[1]

In September 2013, Ark ETF Trust filed its first registration statement with the SEC, proposing four ETFs — Ark Genomics Revolution, Ark Industrial Transformation, Ark Man + Machine and Ark Technology-as-a-Service — and noting that the newly formed adviser had no prior experience managing actively managed ETFs.⁠[2]

A registration amendment dated October 7, 2014 listed four funds — ARK Innovation ETF, ARK Genomic Revolution Multi-Sector ETF, ARK Industrial Innovation ETF and ARK Web x.0 ETF — with Wood as the trust’s trustee, president and chief executive officer and an office address in New York.⁠[3]

ARKQ and ARKW began operations on September 30, 2014, and the flagship ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) and ARKG on October 31, 2014; ARKK had net assets of about $7.02 million as of August 31, 2015.⁠[4]

In August 2017, Nikko Asset Management acquired a minority stake in ARK and became the exclusive distributor of its products and strategies in Japan and Asia Pacific; ARK had been sub-adviser to Nikko’s Global Fintech Equity fund since 2016 and had launched five ETFs.⁠[5]

ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF) was launched on February 4, 2019; in the fiscal year ended July 31, 2020, ARKK returned 66.82% at net asset value, and the trust then had seven ETFs, including The 3D Printing ETF and The ARK Israel Innovative Technology ETF.⁠[6]

In the fiscal year ended July 31, 2021, ARKK returned 51.65% at net asset value; the annual report covered eight ETFs, including the new ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF (ARKX).⁠[7]

In October 2021, ARK announced it would close its New York office and move its headquarters to St. Petersburg, Florida, with staff starting there on November 1, and planned an ARK Innovation Center to support entrepreneurs in the Tampa Bay area. Wood said, “Ark is not a traditional Wall Street asset management firm.”⁠[8]

In the fiscal year ended July 31, 2022, ARKK returned −62.04% at net asset value. In her shareholder letter, Wood called it “a turbulent year of risk-off sentiment” for innovation-oriented equities and said ARK believed the magnitude and length of the drawdown were unwarranted.⁠[9]

ARK Venture Fund was registered as an interval fund that conducts periodic repurchase offers, with a minimum initial investment of $500.⁠[10]

The fund began operations on September 1, 2022 and had net assets of about $24.92 million as of July 31, 2023, with holdings including private companies Databricks, Anthropic and Replit as well as CoinbaseCoinbaseCoinbase is a U.S. operator of crypto asset trading platforms, founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam, whose listed parent is Coinbase Global, Inc.; it went public through a direct listing on Nasdaq (ticker COIN) in April 2021 and joined the S&P 500 in May 2025. It provides crypto trading, custody, staking, and stablecoin-related services, launched USDC with Circle, develops the Ethereum layer-2 network Base, and acquired the crypto options exchange Deribit in 2025; its venture investing operates as Coinbase Ventures.Open the full entry; the report described its aim to “democratize venture capital.”⁠[11]

On September 19, 2023, ARK Invest LLC, parent of ARK Investment Management LLC, announced it had acquired London thematic ETF issuer Rize ETF Limited from AssetCo, with the Rize brand to be replaced by ARK Invest Europe; the release said ARK is minority-owned by Nikko Asset Management and named Wood as founder, chief investment officer and CEO.⁠[12]

On January 11, 2024, the ARK 21Shares21Shares21Shares is an issuer of crypto asset exchange-traded products (ETPs) headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, which lists physically backed crypto ETPs on several European exchanges and issues products in the United States such as the ARK 21Shares spot Bitcoin ETF; in November 2025 it was acquired by the digital asset prime broker FalconX.Open the full entry Bitcoin ETF was listed for trading on Cboe BZX under the ticker ARKB; the trust is managed by 21Shares US LLC, with ARK Investment Management as sub-adviser.⁠[13]

In the fiscal year ended July 31, 2025, ARKK returned 65.31% at net asset value and had net assets of about $8.04 billion in 42 holdings at period end.⁠[14]

ARK Invest: Official website: https://www.ark-invest.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[12]

ARK Invest Europe: Official website: https://europe.ark-funds.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[12]