Most active investment firms of ultra-wealthy

A version of this article 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.

Tech billionaire Eric Schmidt’s family office took the top spot in CNBC’s inaugural Inside Wealth Family Office 15 list, which ranks the most active U.S. family offices for dealmaking in 2025.

Schmidt’s family office, Hillspire, made 15 investments in 2025, most of them in artificial intelligence, according to exclusive data provided by private wealth intelligence platform Fintrx. The investments include a Paris-based AI voice startup, a fusion company and a software platform for luxury travel and experiences.

Other family offices that made the cut include Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions, Peter Thiel’s Thiel Capital, Barry Sternlicht’s Jaws Estates Capital and Builders Vision, the family office and social-impact platform founded by Walmart heir Lukas Walton. 

The 15 family offices made over 120 investments combined last year, in sectors ranging from robotics and software to biotech, food and beverage, sports and blockchain.

The list, which ranks large, single-family offices by the number of publicly disclosed direct investments, offers a rare window into the deal activities of America’s richest billionaires and families. Family offices, the private investment firms of the ultra-wealthy, are exploding in size in number, expected to grow from 8,000 last year to more than 10,700 by 2030, according to Deloitte.

With over $3 trillion in assets, family offices are becoming a powerful force in mergers and acquisitions, startup funding and capital raises for private companies. They’re also increasingly coveted by Wall Street, with private banks, asset managers, private equity firms and even insurance companies all vying for their business.

Family offices aren’t required to disclose their assets or returns and remain fiercely private, often clouding deal activity in mystery.

All of the family offices on the CNBC’s list manage at least $1 billion in assets by Fintrx’s estimate. For the sake of the list, family offices are defined as investment vehicles or holding companies of a single family or individual that don’t manage money for outside investors.

“Family offices are intentionally opaque, so deal activity fills in the gaps,” said Russ D’Argento, founder and CEO of Fintrx. “Co-invest patterns, sector activity and repeat themes create a practical roadmap for understanding their priorities and how they deploy capital.”

The ranking is based on the number of direct investments made in 2025 for each family office listed on the Fintrx database, combined with added reporting by Inside Wealth. CNBC sought comment from firms listed and incorporated feedback where appropriate. About half declined to comment.

The list doesn’t include the investment amounts and may not include all deals or all family offices, since they aren’t required to disclose their investments. Fintrx’s team of researchers compiles the data based on public and private sources. Real estate investments were not included in determining the rankings.

For 2025, the dominant investment theme was AI. In a recent survey from JPMorgan, 65% of family offices cited AI as their top investment priority, far outpacing any other sector. AI, tech and software (comprising the broader AI trade) accounted for more than a third of all deals disclosed by family offices on CNBC’s list. Healthcare was the next largest sector, followed by biotech.

Schmidt’s spending spree on AI echoes his public influence as an evangelist for the technology. The former Google CEO co-wrote the popular book on AI with Henry Kissinger, “The Age of AI,” and funds the AI-focused nonprofit Special Competitive Studies Project. In a talk at Harvard in December, Schmidt said AI’s ability “to discover new facts” and learn for itself could be just four years away.

Last year Hillspire invested in Gradium, a Paris-based company spun out of the French AI lab Kyutai, that’s developing AI voices that respond almost instantly as well as Reflection AI, a startup founded by two former Google DeepMind researchers that aspires to be an open-source alternative to OpenAI and Anthropic.

Hillspire also made an investment in Peek, a software provider and marketplace for travel and experiences that also attracted investments from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and Kayak founder Paul English.

Ranking a close second for 2025 disclosed deal activity was the family office of Jeff Bezos, the world’s fifth richest man, worth $234 billion, according to Bloomberg. Bezos Expeditions backed Unconventional AI, which aims to build a more energy-efficient AI computer. It also invested in Physical Intelligence, a robot startup, alongside OpenAI and Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital.

One of Bezos’ few non-AI investments last year was Arrived, a trading platform that allows investors to buy shares of rental homes for as little as $100. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is also an investor, along with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.

Third place on the Family Office 15 was a tie between the family offices of hedge fund veteran Jim Pallotta and investor-philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs. Pallotta’s Raptor Group, based in Boston, invests heavily in electronics and software. Its bets included Reelables, a smart-label tracking company; MatrixSpace, a radar technology company; and Emptyvessel, a digital gaming studio. Pallotta also invested in DryWater, which makes electrolyte and vitamin powdered-drink mix.

Powell Jobs founded Emerson Collective as an investment and philanthropy platform to advance causes like women’s health with multiple approaches. Emerson is also investing heavily in AI, but with a focus on how the technology can better help mankind. It invested in Humans&, which aims to be a “human-centric” AI startup, alongside Bezos Expeditions and Nvidia. Emerson has also backed Chai Discovery, which is using AI for drug discovery and counts General Catalyst and Menlo Ventures as investors.

Most of the family offices on CNBC’s list were founded by first-generation wealth creators who made their fortunes in tech or finance. Many launched family offices as a second act of their careers and as a way to help grow companies in the industries where they first forged their wealth.

Yet a growing number of family offices are controlled by the next generation, which is more focused on impact investing.

Walton, the 39-year-old Walmart heir, created Builders Vision, a multibillion-dollar funding machine that powers philanthropy and startups that aim to improve the world. 

“What we’re doing here is challenging,” Walton told CNBC in 2022. “We’re trying to tie together cultures from philanthropy, from impact investment, from venture capitalists, not to mention public markets and equity managers.”

Last year, Builders Vision invested in several sustainable food and agriculture companies, including Cream Co. Meats, OoNee Sea Urchin Ranch and Coral Vita. It also backed sustainability startups like Firefly Green Fuels, which makes clean aviation fuel from sewage.