Private Equity Giant Apollo Is Bringing A Red-hot Corner Of The Market To The Blockchain

Getty Images; Jenny Chang-Rodriguez/BI

• Apollo unveiled a tokenized fund that offers investors access to private credit deals via blockchain.
• The firm announced the Apollo Diversified Credit Securitize Fund on Thursday.
• The fund is Apollo's first offering to accredited investors on the blockchain.

Apollo has a new way to offer investors a chance to get into one of the hottest areas of financial markets, unveiling a tokenized fund on Thursday that brings investors private credit opportunities via blockchain.

The private equity giant, which managed about $733 billion in assets, said it partnered with tokenization platform Securitize to launch the Apollo Diversified Credit Securitize Fund, which will give tokenized access to the firm's existing Diversified Credit Fund.

"The next wave of demand for tokenized assets has emerged around fixed income, including private credit," Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize said in a statement.

The new fund, called ACRED, will be available on a handful of blockchains, including Solana and Ethereum, the firm said.

"We believe ACRED is already proving attractive to both institutional and individual investors, and we're excited to work with these new digital asset ecosystems to build the future of investments," Apollo partner Christine Moy said.

ACRED, which is Apollo's first offering for its Diversified Credit Fund on the blockchain, gives investors access to the firm's corporate lending and other deals in private credit — a hot sector of the market that's expected to balloon in the coming years.

According to data and analytics firm Preqin, the private credit universe is expected to expand to $2.6 trillion by 2029, up from an estimated $1.5 trillion at the start of 2024. Dry powder in the private equity space, meanwhile, was estimated to sit at a record $1.6 trillion at the end of 2024.

Apollo's tokenized fund comes amid a bullish stretch for digital assets, with investors hoping that the Trump administration will usher in a new era for crypto markets that will boost prices.

Crypto players are eyeing a handful of potentially bullish catalysts on the horizon, including looser regulation in the sector and the establishment of a national bitcoin reserve,