Family offices make fewer deals but still flock to AI startups

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.

Investment firms of ultra-rich families have scaled back their deal-making throughout 2025, and the last quarter of the year is not off to a promising start. In October, family offices made 51 direct investments, down 63% on an annual basis, according to data provided exclusively to CNBC by private wealth platform Fintrx.

However, family offices are still backing massive fundraises for artificial intelligence companies.

Last month, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss’ namesake investment firm joined a $1.4 billion Series E round for Crusoe, boosting the data center developer’s valuation to $10 billion. Hillspire, the family office of ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, participated in a $2 billion Series B round for Reflection, the open-source AI model lab now valued at $8 billion.

Family office investors were also involved in earlier headline-making rounds, such as Commonwealth Fusion’s $863 million Series B2 fundraising. Hillspire, Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective and Stanley Druckenmiller’s firm, Duquesne Family Office, joined the power plant developer’s round, which was announced in August.

While family offices are placing fewer bets, they haven’t soured on large rounds, according to a recent report by PwC.

In the first half of 2025, family offices made 23% fewer deals, but their value only fell by 18% on an annual basis, per PwC. The proportion of family office deals in excess of $100 million held steady at 15% and those over $500 million only edged down by 1 percentage point to 3%.

Supersized rounds for AI firms have helped to prop up deal values. In the first half of this year, family offices made nearly the same number of investments in AI and machine learning compared with the same period in 2023, but deal value nearly tripled to $123.3 billion, per PwC.

But even before the AI wave, family offices were shifting their preference to larger deals, according to the consultancy. Over the past decade, the proportion of investments below $25 million has shrunk from 70% to 59%. Deals between $25 million and $100 million now make up 26%, up 6 percentage points from 2015, and the share of deals worth more than $100 million has increased from 9% to 15%.

The consultancy’s report credited the trend to family offices seeking bigger returns and their “rising ambitions as major players in the global deals landscape.”