Family offices slow dealmaking but double down on large AI investments

Family offices for the world’s richest families have pulled back on the number of deals they are making this year, and the final stretch of 2025 has not started in a way that suggests the slowdown will reverse quickly.

New figures shared by private wealth platform Fintrx show that family offices made 51 direct investments in October, which is less than half the number made in the same month last year. The fall is large enough that even experienced investors in private wealth circles admit it is one of the clearest signs yet of caution across the richest end of the market.

AI remains lucrative for family offices

What is interesting, though, is that the most expensive deals are still going ahead, and a lot of those are in artificial intelligence.

Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who have built a name for themselves as long-term technology investors, recently joined a fundraising round valued at $1.4 billion for Crusoe, a company that builds data centres. That round lifted Crusoe’s value to $10 billion.

Hillspire, the investment arm linked to Eric Schmidt, the former chief of Google, also chose to back a fresh fundraising of $2 billion for another AI player called Reflection, which raised funds to create an America’s DeepSeek rival. Reflection’s valuation is now said to be $8 billion following the round, as previously reported by Cryptopolitan.

This is not limited to late 2025, as family offices have already featured in other headline deals earlier in the year. One of the standout examples was Commonwealth Fusion, the power company trying to push forward nuclear fusion. It raised $863 million in August, and the capital came from some of the most recognised billionaire families.

Hillspire was there again, joined by Emerson Collective, which is linked to Laurene Powell Jobs, and the Duquesne Family Office of Stanley Druckenmiller. These names show that, despite a quieter year, ultra-rich investors have not lost appetite for big bets.

A recent report by PwC suggests that the drop in the number of deals does not tell the whole story.

The firm says that family offices made 23% fewer deals in the first half of 2025 compared with the same period last year, but the overall value of those investments only slipped by 18%. It also says that the share of deals larger than $100 million stayed firm at 15%, and the largest category, deals worth more than $500 million, fell by only one percentage point.

The consultancy says that the surge in AI deals has helped keep values high. In the first six months of this year, family office investment in AI and machine learning was almost flat when measuring the number of deals.

However, the amount of money they poured in nearly tripled to more than $120 billion. It is another sign that even when the rich grow cautious, they still want to be attached to the most promising technology.

PwC also argues that this shift to larger deals began long before AI became the current buzzy sector.

Ten years ago, about seven in every 10 family office investments were below $25 million; now, that figure is just under six in 10. The middle band of deals worth between $25 million and $100 million has gone up, and deals worth more than $100 million have risen from 9% to 15%.

In short, the world’s richest families are still spending. They are simply choosing fewer targets and putting more money into them.

If you're reading this, you’re already ahead. Stay there with our newsletter.