Investors chasing pre-IPO SpaceX exposure through an ETF wrapper usually narrow the field to two names: ERShares Private-Public Crossover ETF (NASDAQ:XOVR) and the ARK Innovation ETF (NYSEARCA:ARKK). The two look like variations on the same theme, disruptive growth wrapped in a ticker. Under the hood, they diverge sharply. XOVR holds SpaceX as a direct portfolio position that now runs near 23% of the fund. ARKK, despite the ARK brand’s reputation for private growth bets, holds no SpaceX shares at all.
What Each Fund Is Actually Betting On
XOVR is built around a specific structural loophole. The 1940 Act lets a registered fund put up to 15% of assets in illiquid private securities, and ERShares uses that allowance aggressively to buy pre-IPO unicorns alongside public equities. Marketing materials confirm the fund held SpaceX and Klarna while private and continued holding them after Klarna’s 2025 listing and SpaceX’s 2026 public debut. The bet is simple: capture the crossover moment when late-stage private valuations reprice into public markets.
ARKK plays a different game entirely. Cathie Wood’s flagship is an actively managed basket of liquid public equities picked for exposure to genomics, AI, fintech, and robotics. Tesla anchors the portfolio at 9.735% of net assets, followed by Tempus AI at 5.355% and AMD at 5.184%. The single private position in ARKK is OpenAI Group PBC Series C at 2.700%. SpaceX sits in ARK’s separate Venture Fund (ARKVX), which is a different product with different access rules. Anyone assuming that owning ARKK gets them Elon Musk’s rocket company is buying the wrong fund.
Where the Difference Shows Up
The two funds behave nothing alike under stress. ARKK’s 2021 to 2022 drawdown remains the reference point: over the trailing five years it is still down 32.87%, having fallen from $116.54 in July 2021 to $78.24. That is what a high-beta bet on long-duration public growth looks like when rates rise.
XOVR, launched November 7, 2017, took a different path. Over the same five-year window it is up 27.77%, and its 10-year figure sits at 134.1%. The private-securities sleeve marks less frequently and less violently than a public high-beta book, which dampens realized drawdowns but introduces a different risk: pricing opacity when redemptions surge.
The Practical Comparison
| Metric | XOVR | ARKK |
|---|---|---|
| Direct SpaceX weight | ~23% | 0% |
| Net assets | ~$459.7M | $6.48B |
| Expense ratio (ongoing) | 0.75% | 0.75% |
| YTD return | 0.45% | 1.72% |
| 1-year return | 6.59% | 8.23% |
| 5-year return | 27.77% | -32.87% |
The AUM gap matters. ARKK trades tens of millions of shares daily with tight spreads. XOVR is a fraction of the size, and its private holdings can push the market price to premiums or discounts against NAV when flows spike. That is the tax for owning pre-IPO SpaceX through a public wrapper.
The Verdict
If the specific goal is SpaceX exposure inside a normal brokerage account, XOVR delivers it directly. Nearly a quarter of the fund is SpaceX, while ARKK carries none. Investors who want a diversified basket of public disruptive-innovation names, with a single private OpenAI position layered in, are better served by ARKK’s deeper liquidity and larger book. What would flip the call is a SpaceX IPO that fully repriced the private stake, or a rate cycle that pushed ARKK’s public-growth basket back to its 2021 highs. Until then, the SpaceX question has one answer.
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