Inside Wealth Family Office 15: Most active investment firms of the ultra-wealthy

A model of this text appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth publication with Robert Frank, a weekly information to the high-net-worth investor and shopper. Join to obtain future editions, straight to your inbox.

Tech billionaire Eric Schmidt’s household workplace took the prime spot in CNBC’s inaugural Inside Wealth Family Office 15 listing, which ranks the most active U.S. household places of work for dealmaking in 2025.

Schmidt’s household workplace, Hillspire, made 15 investments in 2025, most of them in synthetic intelligence, in line with unique information supplied by personal wealth intelligence platform Fintrx. The investments embrace a Paris-based AI voice startup, a fusion firm and a software program platform for luxurious journey and experiences.

Different household places of work that made the minimize embrace Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions, Peter Thiel’s Thiel Capital, Barry Sternlicht’s Jaws Estates Capital and Builders Imaginative and prescient, the household workplace and social-impact platform based by Walmart inheritor Lukas Walton. 

The 15 household places of work revamped 120 investments mixed final 12 months, in sectors starting from robotics and software program to biotech, meals and beverage, sports activities and blockchain.

The listing, which ranks massive, single-family places of work by the quantity of publicly disclosed direct investments, presents a uncommon window into the deal actions of America’s richest billionaires and households. Family places of work, the personal investment firms of the ultra-wealthy, are exploding in measurement in quantity, anticipated to develop from 8,000 final 12 months to greater than 10,700 by 2030, in line with Deloitte.

With over $3 trillion in property, household places of work have gotten a strong pressure in mergers and acquisitions, startup funding and capital raises for personal corporations. They’re additionally more and more coveted by Wall Avenue, with personal banks, asset managers, personal fairness firms and even insurance coverage corporations all vying for his or her enterprise.

Family places of work aren’t required to reveal their property or returns and stay fiercely personal, typically clouding deal exercise in thriller.

All of the household places of work on the CNBC’s listing handle at the very least $1 billion in property by Fintrx’s estimate. For the sake of the listing, household places of work are outlined as investment automobiles or holding corporations of a single household or particular person that do not handle cash for out of doors buyers.

“Family places of work are deliberately opaque, so deal exercise fills in the gaps,” mentioned Russ D’Argento, founder and CEO of Fintrx. “Co-invest patterns, sector exercise and repeat themes create a sensible roadmap for understanding their priorities and the way they deploy capital.”

The rating is predicated on the quantity of direct investments made in 2025 for every household workplace listed on the Fintrx database, mixed with added reporting by Inside Wealth. CNBC sought remark from firms listed and integrated suggestions the place acceptable. About half declined to remark.

The listing would not embrace the investment quantities and will not embrace all offers or all household places of work, since they don’t seem to be required to reveal their investments. Fintrx’s crew of researchers compiles the information primarily based on private and non-private sources. Actual property investments weren’t included in figuring out the rankings.

For 2025, the dominant investment theme was AI. In a latest survey from JPMorgan, 65% of household places of work cited AI as their prime investment precedence, far outpacing every other sector. AI, tech and software program (comprising the broader AI commerce) accounted for greater than a 3rd of all offers disclosed by household places of work on CNBC’s listing. Healthcare was the subsequent largest sector, adopted by biotech.

Schmidt’s spending spree on AI echoes his public affect as an evangelist for the know-how. The previous Google CEO co-wrote the widespread guide on AI with Henry Kissinger, “The Age of AI,” and funds the AI-focused nonprofit Particular Aggressive Research Undertaking. In a chat at Harvard in December, Schmidt mentioned AI’s capability “to find new details” and study for itself could possibly be simply 4 years away.

Final 12 months Hillspire invested in Gradium, a Paris-based firm spun out of the French AI lab Kyutai, that is creating AI voices that reply virtually immediately in addition to Reflection AI, a startup based by two former Google DeepMind researchers that aspires to be an open-source different to OpenAI and Anthropic.

Hillspire additionally made an investment in Peek, a software program supplier and market for journey and experiences that additionally attracted investments from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and Kayak founder Paul English.

Rating a detailed second for 2025 disclosed deal exercise was the household workplace of Jeff Bezos, the world’s fifth richest man, value $234 billion, in line with Bloomberg. Bezos Expeditions backed Unconventional AI, which goals to construct a extra energy-efficient AI pc. It additionally invested in Bodily Intelligence, a robotic startup, alongside OpenAI and Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital.

One of Bezos’ few non-AI investments final 12 months was Arrived, a buying and selling platform that enables buyers to purchase shares of rental houses for as little as $100. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff can also be an investor, together with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

Third place on the Family Office 15 was a tie between the household places of work of hedge fund veteran Jim Pallotta and investor-philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs. Pallotta’s Raptor Group, primarily based in Boston, invests closely in electronics and software program. Its bets included Reelables, a smart-label monitoring firm; MatrixSpace, a radar know-how firm; and Emptyvessel, a digital gaming studio. Pallotta additionally invested in DryWater, which makes electrolyte and vitamin powdered-drink combine.

Powell Jobs based Emerson Collective as an investment and philanthropy platform to advance causes like girls’s well being with a number of approaches. Emerson can also be investing closely in AI, however with a concentrate on how the know-how can higher assist mankind. It invested in People&, which goals to be a “human-centric” AI startup, alongside Bezos Expeditions and Nvidia. Emerson has additionally backed Chai Discovery, which is utilizing AI for drug discovery and counts Normal Catalyst and Menlo Ventures as buyers.

Most of the household places of work on CNBC’s listing have been based by first-generation wealth creators who made their fortunes in tech or finance. Many launched household places of work as a second act of their careers and as a method to assist develop corporations in the industries the place they first solid their wealth.

But a rising quantity of household places of work are managed by the subsequent technology, which is extra centered on affect investing.

Walton, the 39-year-old Walmart inheritor, created Builders Imaginative and prescient, a multibillion-dollar funding machine that powers philanthropy and startups that purpose to enhance the world. 

“What we’re doing right here is difficult,” Walton informed CNBC in 2022. “We’re attempting to tie collectively cultures from philanthropy, from affect investment, from enterprise capitalists, to not point out public markets and fairness managers.”

Final 12 months, Builders Imaginative and prescient invested in a number of sustainable meals and agriculture corporations, together with Cream Co. Meats, OoNee Sea Urchin Ranch and Coral Vita. It additionally backed sustainability startups like Firefly Inexperienced Fuels, which makes clear aviation gas from sewage.