Key Points
- Investment firms of the ultra-rich started the new year with buzzy investments, including in a motorcycle racing team.
- But 2026 is hardly off to a roaring start, with family offices making 32% fewer direct investments in January on an annual basis, according to Fintrx.
- While family offices are making fewer bets, their appetite for mega-rounds, which have come to dominate the VC landscape, hasn’t waned.
A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. Blackstone billionaire David Blitzer, the first person to own team stakes in all five major U.S. professional sports leagues, has another feather in his cap. Last week, Blitzer’s personal investment firm, Bolt Ventures, joined a consortium to buy MotoGP team Red Bull KTM Tech3 for $50 million. Other investment firms of the ultra-rich also made buzzy bets in January, including Jeff Bezos ‘ namesake family office, which co-led a $1.4 billion fundraise for AI robotics firm SkildAI. Bezos Expedition also joined Emerson Collective, the investment and philanthropy firm of Laurene Powell Jobs, in a $480 million seed round for Humans & , a startup aiming to train artificial intelligence models to collaborate with humans rather than replace them. However, these high-profile investments aside, family office deal-making is not off to a roaring start in 2026. In January, family offices made 52 direct investments in companies, according to data provided exclusively to CNBC by private wealth platform Fintrx. The tally represents a 32% drop in deals on an annual basis. Last year’s direct investment activity was similarly subdued as firms reined in their direct bets amid tariff uncertainty and geopolitical conflict. However, while family offices are placing fewer bets, they are still keen on mega-rounds, which have come to dominate the venture capital landscape. In 2025, half of the $339.4 billion raised went to just 0.05% of completed deals, per PitchBook . In other deals last month, Michael Bloomberg’s Willett Advisors and Stanley Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Family Office both backed a $257 million Series D round for Cellares, which builds automated labs for manufacturing cell therapies. Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing’s Horizon Ventures also participated in a $150 million Series D for Alpaca, a brokerage technology firm that counts Kraken as a client.
Source – CNBC
