Nasdaq Ventures is investing $100 million in Payward, the parent of crypto exchange Kraken, at a $21 billion valuation — up modestly from the $20 billion set in November 2025. The deal expands a March partnership covering the Nasdaq Equity Token framework, Payward's xStocks distribution rails, and Nasdaq surveillance technology across Payward's venues. NETs are expected to launch in the second quarter of 2027, while Payward's own IPO now targets Q2 2027 at the earliest.
Kraken's parent company now carries a $21 billion price tag after Nasdaq's venture arm wrote a $100 million cheque for a minority stake, extending a tokenized-equity alliance the two firms began in March.
"The next era of market evolution will be defined by how efficiently and seamlessly capital and assets move across the financial system with durable liquidity," Tal Cohen, President at Nasdaq, said in a statement announcing the investment. "Expanding our relationship with Payward reflects our conviction that the company can play an important role in building the infrastructure that supports this evolution."
The valuation marks a modest step up from the $20 billion set in November 2025, when Jane Street, DRW Venture Capital and Citadel Securities backed Payward. Nasdaq's capital comes from its venture arm and was not announced publicly before Bloomberg reported it on Sept. 10. Wells Fargo served as Nasdaq's exclusive capital markets advisor on the transaction.
The deal carries three components beyond the cheque. Nasdaq and Payward will keep building the Nasdaq Equity Token (NET) framework, with an expectation to launch NETs in the second quarter of 2027. Payward will distribute Nasdaq-listed companies in tokenized form through its xStocks service, which had processed more than $25 billion in trades by March, according to Kraken, while holders retain the voting rights attached to traditional shares. Payward will also adopt Nasdaq's market surveillance technology across its trading venues, covering crypto, equities, tokenized equities, futures and options.
The commercial logic runs through settlement. Arjun Sethi, Co-CEO of Payward, said more than $2 trillion of stock trades clear through the U.S. system daily, with buys and sells netting down by about 98 percent and the clearing house holding $10 billion to $20 billion of collateral against the residual while it waits a day to settle. Cutting that wait from two days to one in 2024 released $3 billion, he said, and onchain settlement removes the wait entirely.
For Nasdaq, the stake buys part ownership of a supplier it plans to depend on rather than exposure to another exchange's trading revenue. The company is separately building Digital Liquidity Networks, its markets business for always-on infrastructure, and the NYSE is developing blockchain rails for 24/7 trading of tokenized stocks and ETFs — a competitive clock that makes Payward's existing rails worth more than the $100 million outlay implies.
The investment does not accelerate Payward's listing. The company filed confidentially with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in November 2025, delayed twice, and now targets the second quarter of 2027 at the earliest. Fresh capital reduces the pressure to list on a schedule set by earlier backers, and Payward's latest quarterly earnings showed revenue climbing 17 percent while profit collapsed — a combination that would have been harder to price in a public offering.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
