Tessera, a blockchain-focused firm led by Chan Ahn, is launching a platform to make private equity exposures tradable within the Solana ecosystem. The company intends to acquire stakes in privately held companies, place those holdings into special purpose vehicles, and issue digital tokens representing economic exposure to the underlying assets.
Ahn, who previously served as an Executive Director at Goldman Sachs and as Head of Product Development and Cross Asset Structuring at JPMorgan Chase, said Tessera is targeting the so-called real-world asset market in crypto - the practice of converting traditional financial assets into blockchain-based tokens.
Under Tessera’s model, tokens will reflect the economic performance of the private equity in the SPVs but will not be traditional shares. Instead, the tokens are structured as loan participation rights. Tessera emphasized that these tokens carry no voting rights in the underlying companies, and that this structural choice "meaningfully shapes" the company’s approach to complying with international financial regulations.
The platform will make these tokens available for trading on decentralized exchanges with instant settlement, distinguishing them from conventional private-equity investments that often come with long lockup periods imposed by venture capital groups. Tessera said tokens will be tradable at any time, offering investors a higher degree of liquidity than typical private market structures.
Tessera selected Solana as the blockchain for its operations. The company described Solana as a high-speed network capable of processing thousands of transactions per second with near-zero transaction costs, making it suitable for the frequent settlement Tessera anticipates.
On fees, Tessera plans to charge a 0.2% transfer fee whenever tokens move between digital wallets. The firm currently does not levy management or origination fees, according to Ahn.
The launch is timed against growing adoption of tokenized real-world assets. Tessera cited public data indicating the broader market for these assets has topped $20 billion in outstanding value, much of which it said resides in assets perceived as safe havens by investors, including U.S. Treasuries.
Regarding the initial composition of the asset pool, Tessera expects early offerings to include exposure to late-stage privately held companies in the technology and cryptocurrency sectors. Ahn said Tessera’s objective is to provide direct economic exposure to private businesses such as SpaceX, Kalshi, and OpenAI, structuring tokens so they mirror the performance of the underlying private equity.
On the question of broader token plans, Tessera has no active plan to issue a project or governance token, though Ahn did not rule out the possibility in the future.
What this means for markets
- Tokenization could increase liquidity for private investments by enabling continuous trading on decentralized exchanges.
- Structuring tokens as loan participation rights rather than equity alters regulatory and governance considerations, particularly around voting and shareholder influence.
- The adoption of a low-cost, high-throughput blockchain like Solana underpins Tessera’s model for near-instant settlement and frequent token transfers.