Nasdaq’s venture arm agreed to invest $100 million in Payward, the parent company of Kraken, extending a tokenized-equities partnership the two firms struck in March and adding a market surveillance agreement that installs Nasdaq technology inside Payward’s trading venues, Nasdaq said on Thursday.
The investment values Payward at $21 billion, according to Bloomberg, which reported the figure ahead of the announcement citing people familiar with the matter. Nasdaq’s release does not disclose a valuation, the size of the stake, whether the $100 million buys newly issued or existing shares, or any governance rights.
Nasdaq now owns equity in the venue it has picked to distribute its own tokenized shares outside the United States, and the deal lands nine days after Payward struck a comparable arrangement with the London Stock Exchange. Payward is assembling the same position with three exchange groups at once — Nasdaq, LSEG and Deutsche Börse, which bought into the company in April — while each of them builds a competing route to tokenized equities.
The $21 billion mark is a recovery. Payward raised $800 million at a $20 billion valuation in November 2025 from backers including Citadel Securities, Jane Street and DRW Venture Capital. Five months later, Deutsche Börse’s $200 million investment priced the company at roughly $13.3 billion for about 1.5% on a fully diluted basis, a 33% markdown. The Nasdaq round is 58% above that April price.
