A new platform founded by a Wall Street veteran Chan Ahn aims to bring one of the financial industry’s most exclusive asset classes – private equity – onto the blockchain.
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Tessera has announced the launch of its private equity tokenization platform on Solana, a system designed to give investors on-chain exposure to shares of private companies that have historically only been accessible through venture capital firms and institutional investment networks.
The goal is ambitious: to transform private equity from a closed financial market into a liquid, globally accessible asset class.
“Private equity has historically operated within closed networks,” said Chan Ahn, founder and CEO of Tessera. “If we can make it liquid and globally accessible, it will fundamentally change who gets to participate in wealth creation.”
A Wall Street background meets DeFi
Ahn brings a traditional finance background that is rare among Web3’s founders.
Before launching Tessera, he spent nearly seven years as an executive director at Goldman Sachs and another four years at JPMorgan Chase, where he was head of Product Development and Cross-Asset Structuring. Most recently, Ahn worked as CTO of ALEX, a DeFi protocol built on Bitcoin.
His experience at major financial institutions has helped shape the thesis behind Tessera: many of the most valuable private companies remain inaccessible to the broader market until their greatest growth phase has already passed.
“Most investors should only participate after the biggest gains have already been priced in,” Ahn said. “We’re trying to move that timeline forward.”
How Tessera’s model works
Tessera’s platform converts shares of private companies tokenized assets on Solana through a legal and technical structure designed to reflect traditional financial ownership.
The process works in three steps:
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Tessera acquires shares of private companies.
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The belongings are kept indoors Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) away from bankruptcy.
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Tokens are issued on Solana that represent proportionate economic exposure to the underlying shares.
These tokens are designed to function as DeFi native assets, meaning they can theoretically be traded 24/7 on decentralized exchanges with instant settlementa stark contrast to traditional private equity structures that typically retain capital for years.
To maintain transparency, Tessera integrates onchain proof mechanisms that verify that each token is backed by the underlying share reserve.
Ahn says this level of transparency has often been lacking in traditional financial markets.
“In many ways, private equity is still a black box,” he said. “Thanks to the Blockchain infrastructure, these reserves and ownership structures can become verifiable.”
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Entering the real asset boom
The launch comes at a time when tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) are becoming one of the fastest-growing sectors in crypto.
Public data shows that the RWA market has now surpassed $20 billion in token value, although most of that capital is currently in lower-risk instruments such as tokenized U.S. Treasury bonds and money market funds.
Tessera is betting that the next big phase of risk-weighted asset adoption will be further up the risk curve into equity exposure, especially in late-stage private companies.
The platform’s first assets are expected to include shares in well-known technology and crypto companies, offering investors access before these companies hit the public markets.
A bridge between TradFi and DeFi
Tessera is backed by Tessera Lab, whose ecosystem dates back to the ALEX Lab DeFi project, which previously attracted investors including White Star Capital, Cultur3 Capital, GBIC, OKX Ventures and Trust Machines.
The company is headquartered in Panama City, but its ambitions are global.
The broader opportunity is significant. Private equity represents a multi-trillion dollar market, but participation is typically limited to institutional investors and high net worth individuals due to high minimum investments and long lock-up periods.
Tokenization could potentially lower these barriers.
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If platforms like Tessera succeed, the structure of private markets could shift to something closer to public equities – but with the speed and accessibility of blockchain settlement.
For Ahn, the vision is simple.
“RWAs are already becoming a measurable DeFi sector,” he said. “The next step is to bring the stock markets on-chain.”