Mubadala Capital & Kaio Forge Tokenized Investment Alliance in Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth heavyweight just placed a major bet on the future of finance.

The New Power Play

Mubadala Capital, the investment arm of the $300 billion Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, is diving headfirst into tokenization through a strategic partnership with digital asset platform Kaio. This isn't a tentative pilot program—it's a full-scale deployment aimed at transforming how institutional capital accesses and manages investments.

Why Tokenization Wins

Forget the old-world paperwork and settlement delays. Tokenizing real-world assets—think private equity, real estate, venture debt—slices through legacy friction. It unlocks liquidity in traditionally illiquid markets and opens doors to a global pool of capital 24/7. For a fund of Mubadala's stature, this is about operational alpha: cutting costs, boosting transparency, and future-proofing the portfolio.

The Institutional On-Ramp

Kaio isn't another consumer-facing crypto app. It's built as the institutional-grade rails, focusing on compliance, security, and the complex structuring that big money demands. This partnership signals that the infrastructure is now deemed robust enough for sovereign-level scrutiny. Other wealth funds and pension managers are undoubtedly watching—their move from observer to participant just got a major nudge.

The Bottom Line

When traditional finance's most patient capital starts embracing blockchain's speed, the narrative shifts from 'if' to 'how fast.' This deal validates tokenization as the next logical step for asset management, not a speculative sideshow. Sure, the suits in traditional finance might still call it a fad—right up until it eats their lucrative intermediation fees for lunch. The future of investing isn't just digital; it's programmable, and the gates are officially open.

TLDR

• Mubadala Capital partners with Kaio to test tokenized private market access.
• Kaio’s digital framework will help institutional investors access private markets.
• Mubadala Capital manages $430B across various alternative investment strategies.
• The collaboration aims to simplify investment access and reduce traditional barriers.

Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Capital is exploring new frontiers in investment access by partnering with Kaio to test tokenized solutions for private market strategies. This collaboration marks a significant step for one of the region’s largest asset managers in leveraging blockchain technology to unlock institutional-grade investments. The initiative aims to enhance accessibility, reduce barriers, and open up opportunities for accredited investors to access private market products through tokenized infrastructure.

Mubadala Capital Explores Tokenized Access to Private Markets

Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Capital is taking steps toward integrating blockchain technology into its investment strategies. The firm has partnered with Kaio, a provider of infrastructure for institutional-grade real-world asset (RWA) tokenization.

The two organizations aim to explore how tokenized access can offer broader and more efficient access to private market investment products. This collaboration highlights the growing interest among sovereign-linked asset managers in utilizing blockchain technology to improve the accessibility and distribution of alternative assets.

The Partnership with Kaio

Mubadala Capital, a prominent asset management firm overseeing more than $430 billion in assets, has teamed up with Kaio to assess the potential of blockchain rails in broadening institutional access to its private market products.

The partnership aims to leverage Kaio’s digital framework to offer institutional and accredited investors on-chain access to Mubadala’s private equity, real estate, and credit offerings. This MOVE signals a significant shift in how private market investment strategies could be structured and delivered in the future.

According to Fatima Al Noaimi and Max Franzetti, co-heads of Mubadala Capital Solutions, the partnership is intended to evaluate how tokenization infrastructure could enhance distribution and access to institutional-grade assets. “The collaboration reflects a commitment to leverage regulatory-aligned infrastructure to test how digital rails can improve access,” they said.

Focus on Tokenized Private Markets

The partnership between Mubadala Capital and Kaio comes at a time when tokenization of real-world assets is gaining traction across both public and private markets. Tokenizing private market investments could break down the traditional barriers of high minimums, long lock-up periods, and geographic restrictions. This initiative is also seen as an effort to align traditional investment vehicles with the evolving digital asset ecosystem, making them more accessible globally.

Kaio, which has previously worked with major institutional players like BlackRock and Brevan Howard, is well-positioned to help Mubadala Capital in this exploration. The firm has already brought over $200 million in institutional assets on-chain, showcasing the growing demand for tokenized solutions. Shrey Rastogi, CEO of Kaio, commented, “This collaboration shows how traditional institutional capital is now scaling on-chain, reflecting the broader trend towards digital infrastructure in finance.”

The Role of Tokenization in Alternative Investments

Tokenization is poised to become a key technology for institutional investors seeking easier access to alternative assets. By converting traditional investments into digital tokens, tokenization makes it possible to fractionalize ownership, lower entry costs, and increase liquidity. The growth of tokenized US Treasurys and other assets in 2025 is a strong indicator of the increasing interest in tokenization as a solution for institutional investors.

As digital asset infrastructure providers, like Polygon, continue to improve their technology, tokenized solutions for private investments are expected to gain further momentum. Polygon’s recent hard fork deployment, designed to support high-frequency use cases like stablecoin transactions and RWA tokenization, highlights the increasing readiness of blockchain platforms to handle these types of transactions at scale.

The Mubadala Capital-Kaio partnership represents a significant step toward digitalizing fund structures and creating new access channels for alternative investment products. While no product has been launched yet, this collaboration could signal the beginning of a broader trend in the financial sector, where tokenization becomes a mainstream approach to accessing private market investments.

A Shift Toward Digital Infrastructure

The move towards tokenization represents a larger trend of traditional financial institutions and sovereign wealth funds exploring blockchain-based infrastructure. By embracing digital assets and tokenization, these firms aim to streamline investment processes and reach a wider pool of institutional and accredited investors.

Mubadala Capital’s partnership with Kaio reflects this shift and suggests that tokenized RWAs may become more prominent in the coming years.