Ondo Finance was offered to prospective buyers after the death of its founder and CEO Nathan Allman earlier this year, according to three people with knowledge of the matter. The company has denied the claim, and the effort appears to be stalled by a legal battle over control.
Allman died unexpectedly on May 25 at age 32 without a will, leaving his controlling stake in Ondo Finance and a large holding of ONDO tokens in probate. His estate was awarded to his parents, Kathleen, 77, and Lawrence Allman, 82.
In early August, Allman's estate filed a lawsuit against Ondo's acting CEO Ian De Bode, alleging an unlawful power and money grab and igniting a corporate control fight. A current court order permits De Bode to continue overseeing day-to-day operations but bars him from making major decisions while the dispute is resolved. A separate petition by Allman's half-sister and an Ondo investor sought to curb Kathleen Allman's control over her share of the estate, which she denied.
A legal fight over control of the company has likely put any sale plans on hold, one of the people said.
An Ondo spokesman called the sale rumors "wholly untrue." Nobody at the company has shopped it for sale, been in sales talks, or engaged anyone to do so on its behalf, the spokesperson said. Allman's estate declined to comment.
New York-based Ondo, founded in 2021 by former Goldman Sachs executives, offers tokenized U.S. Treasuries and stocks and manages more than $3.8 billion across its products, making it one of the largest real-world-asset tokenization platforms. Its OUSG fund holds investments in BlackRock's tokenized BUIDL fund.
Ondo raised $24 million in equity funding—$4 million in 2021 and $20 million in 2022—with backing from Pantera Capital, Founders Fund, Coinbase Ventures, and Tiger Global. A separate $10 million token sale brings publicly reported fundraising to $34 million. The company has not disclosed a valuation, and CoinDesk was unable to determine what price was discussed during the alleged sale talks.
The reports come amid a wave of crypto dealmaking. Announced crypto mergers and acquisitions totaled $12.9 billion in the second quarter, the industry's second-largest quarterly sum, according to Architect Partners. The quarter's biggest deal was Bullish's $4.2 billion acquisition of transfer agent Equiniti.
