Caplight facilitates Citi's launch of tokenized depositary receipts on private shares

Citi has launched a new Digital Depositary Receipt (DDR) product designed to tokenize private company shares, marking the first time a major bank has applied the traditional depositary receipt model to the private equity asset class. The initiative aims to modernize the historically paper-based and bilateral trading processes of private securities by introducing institutional-grade custody and settlement. Caplight has been selected to provide its MarketPrice™ data feed, which utilizes AI-driven models to deliver independent, ongoing pricing for the underlying private assets. The inaugural DDR product represents shares in Kaleido, Inc., signaling a shift toward greater transparency and accessibility in venture-backed markets. By leveraging Caplight’s data infrastructure, which synthesizes signals from over 100,000 venture-backed companies, Citi intends to facilitate more efficient fee assessment and custodial reporting. This collaboration addresses significant liquidity and transparency hurdles, allowing private companies to maintain cap table control while expanding their investor base. The integration of institutional banking with specialized private market data represents a critical step in the maturation of tokenized private equity infrastructure.