Citi has appointed Caplight, a data and technology platform for private company securities, as the independent pricing provider for its newly launched Digital Depositary Receipt (DDR) product. The DDR structure tokenises private company shares for eligible investors, with Citi's first issuance under the programme representing shares in Kaleido, Inc.
Depositary receipts have long been used to give investors cross-border access to public equities. Citi's DDR product applies the same principle to private company shares, an asset class that has historically been transferred through bilateral, paper-based arrangements rather than standardised custody and settlement infrastructure. According to the companies, Citi is the first major bank to extend the depositary receipt model to this segment, combining institutional custody and settlement processes with a tokenised structure for private securities.
Role of independent pricing
Under the arrangement, Caplight's MarketPrice data feed will supply ongoing, independent pricing for the private securities underlying each DDR issuance. This pricing data is intended to support fee assessment and periodic custodial reporting across Citi's DDR programme. MarketPrice draws on Caplight's proprietary pricing models, which combine transaction data, market signals, and fundamental data collected across more than 100,000 venture-backed companies. Independent pricing has traditionally been difficult to obtain in private markets, where transactions are infrequent and not centrally reported, making third-party valuation inputs relevant for custodians and other market participants handling tokenised private shares.
Private markets have historically presented two related challenges for investors: limited access to shares in high-growth, venture-backed companies, and limited transparency around valuation. Citi's DDR product is designed to address both by pairing institutional custody and settlement infrastructure with Caplight's pricing data. A Caplight representative said the arrangement provides the independent pricing basis for the DDR programme, adding that tokenised private securities may allow companies to retain control over voting rights and simplify cap table management while widening the pool of potential investors.
Implications for tokenised private securities
The collaboration reflects a broader movement of established financial institutions into tokenisation of private assets, an area that has so far been served mostly by specialised fintech platforms. By linking a bank-issued custody structure to third-party pricing data, the DDR programme aims to give institutional investors a more standardised way to gain exposure to private company shares. The extent to which the model is adopted beyond the initial Kaleido, Inc. issuance will depend on demand from eligible investors and on how the pricing and custodial framework performs across further transactions.
