Ultra-wealthy investors pull back on volume but double down on artificial intelligence bets, fueling record valuations across the sector.
NEW YORK (Market Insider) — The world’s richest families are cutting back on deal-making this year — but not when it comes to artificial intelligence. Despite a sharp drop in the total number of transactions, family offices continue to write some of the largest checks in the AI space, joining billion-dollar rounds that are reshaping the startup landscape.
According to exclusive data shared with CNBC by Fintrx, a private wealth intelligence platform, family offices completed just 51 direct investments in October, down 63% year over year, signaling one of the quietest quarters for deal activity since the pandemic. Yet even as overall volume falls, the size of their AI bets continues to swell.
AI Mega-Rounds Still Dominate
Last month alone, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss’s family investment firm participated in Crusoe’s $1.4 billion Series E round, valuing the data center developer at $10 billion. Meanwhile, Hillspire—the family office of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt—joined a $2 billion Series B for Reflection, an open-source AI lab now worth $8 billion.
Other recent big-ticket deals include Commonwealth Fusion’s $863 million Series B2, backed by Hillspire, Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective, and Stanley Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Family Office, signaling that elite investors remain eager to fund technologies that sit at the intersection of energy, AI, and next-gen infrastructure.
Fewer Deals, but Bigger Bets
A recent PwC report shows that family offices completed 23% fewer deals in the first half of 2025, yet total deal value only slipped 18%. The share of transactions worth over $100 million remained steady at 15%, while those exceeding $500 million fell just one point, to 3% — underlining their shift toward fewer, higher-impact investments.
AI alone accounted for a huge portion of that capital. Family offices made roughly the same number of AI-related investments as in the first half of 2023, but the total deal value nearly tripled to $123.3 billion, according to PwC.
A Decade-Long Shift Toward Scale
The data reflects a longer-term trend: family offices are moving away from small-ticket deals to focus on larger, institutional-style transactions. Over the past decade, deals under $25 million have shrunk from 70% to 59% of total activity. Investments between $25 million and $100 million now represent 26%, while the share of those above $100 million has climbed to 15%, up from just 9% in 2015.
PwC attributes the trend to the “rising ambitions of family offices as major global dealmakers” — investors who no longer simply preserve generational wealth, but actively shape innovation across frontier technologies like AI, renewable energy, and biotechnology.
The Bottom Line
While most family offices are showing greater caution amid volatile markets, AI remains the exception. Mega-rounds in artificial intelligence continue to attract deep-pocketed backers seeking exposure to transformative technologies — and in doing so, they are helping to sustain record startup valuations even as broader venture activity cools.
In short: the number of deals may be shrinking, but the size — and significance — of the checks being written has never been larger.
