Dakota Marketplace tracked a slight uptick in family office direct investment activity in April, with 51 deals recorded globally as compared to 49 deals in March. Deal value totaled about $2.86B across the 40 transactions with disclosed figures, compared to $126.65B in March, a huge headline number driven almost entirely by OpenAI's $122B funding round.
Venture capital – which Dakota defines as any funding round prior to Series D – continued to dominate direct investment allocations by family offices, accounting for 35 of the 51 deals in April, followed by growth equity at 12. Family offices are "increasingly acting like venture investors," according to Dakota investment research analyst Alex deMarco, and the deal activity in April across Series A and seed rounds "suggests they have internal teams sourcing and underwriting deals on their own, rather than just following other investors into rounds." That belief is echoed in findings from Knight Frank's latest annual family office report. A survey of 40 global family offices, the report found a clear shift from capital preservation toward more active deployment, with family offices now recruiting internal specialists in private equity, venture capital, and real estate. In some cases, family offices are even building their own internal operational capabilities to manage execution and oversight of these direct investments.
Meanwhile, when it came to sector focus in April, healthcare led deal activity for the first time this year with 15 deals. The sector accounted for nearly a third of total activity and narrowly edged out traditional chart topper information technology, which was the month's second-most-active sector at 14 deals. While tech may have lost its crown, it still accounted for over half of the total deal value during the month and is likely to remain the top area for family office investment in the future, according to Ocorian's recently published 2026 Global Family Office Report. Based on a survey of 200 family office executives and principals, it found that the next generation of family members have a greater appetite for both risk and technology-driven themes, including AI and infrastructure, a finding mirrored in the Knight Frank report, where respondents expressed enthusiasm for investments leveraging AI and cloud computing demand. That is especially relevant given Ocorian's finding that nearly 40% of these next generation family members are now the ultimate decision makers on major investments.
"Family offices are the least visible pools of capital in the private markets," said Chris LeRoy, director of investment research at Dakota. "April highlighted just how broad that activity can be in a single month — healthcare led on deal count while technology accounted for the majority of capital deployed. That's why mapping this activity carefully matters more than ever, as it gives the rest of the market a clearer view of where families are investing directly."
Family offices deployed capital across a range of healthcare sub-sectors in April.
The month's largest healthcare deal and third-largest overall was Waymade Capital's participation in a $270M investment in pharmaceutical company Apothecon Group, which comprises India-based Apothecon and US-based Navinta. The investment was led by Singapore-based private equity firm Everstone Capital. Waymade Capital is the family office of brothers and Waymade Healthcare founders Vijay Patel and Bhikhu Patel, established in 2013 to manage the family's investments.
Emerson Collective, the investment and philanthropy firm founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, invested in two healthcare companies during the month. The firm joined a $100M Series A for Cambridge, MA-based Stipple Bio, a precision oncology biotech that emerged from stealth in April. Emerson was an existing seed-stage investor in the company. It also backed Ultralight in a $9.3M seed round during the month. The San Francisco-based startup is building an AI-powered operating system for clinicians focused on preventive and personalized care, consolidating patient notes, lab results, wearable data and treatment protocols into a single system.
The largest deal by far was AI data infrastructure company VAST Data's $1B Series F round. Access Industries, the investment vehicle of billionaire Len Blavatnik, co-led the financing with venture capital firm Drive Capital. The round tripled the company's valuation to $30B.
April's second-largest deal came from Bangalore-based Premji Invest, the family office of Wipro founder Azim Premji, which participated in the $280M Series E for digital lending platform KreditBee. The company became a unicorn after hitting a $1.5B post-money valuation. The KreditBee deal is the latest in a busy stretch for the firm. In March alone, Premji Invest made an investment in Palo Alto-based robotics company Rhoda AI as part of its $450M Series A. It also participated in funding rounds for housing finance platform Weaver Services and inventory and procurement management platform DOSS in March.
ICONIQ Capital, which manages the wealth of billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, made investments in three companies during April. The San Francisco-based firm was among investors in the $150M round for agentic marketing platform Hightouch and $80M round for AcuityMD, which operates a platform for medical technology companies. The firm separately led the $120M round for AI analytics platform OMNI.
Alongside multiple family offices, Thiel Capital and Echo Capital Group invested in a $40M Series E financing for biotechnology ecosystem company Alloy Therapeutics.
Dolby Family Ventures is a San Francisco-based single-family office and early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2014 by David Dolby, son of the late inventor and audio technology pioneer Ray Dolby.
Ray Dolby founded Dolby Laboratories in 1965 and secured more than 50 US patents during his lifetime. He passed away in 2013 at the age of 80 after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and leukemia.
His son David Dolby founded Dolby Family Ventures in 2014 with a mission to honor his father's legacy as a passionate engineer. The firm focuses on investments in sectors like life sciences, precision neuroscience, deep technology, aerospace and climate tech. The firm primarily invests at seed stage through Series A and often makes follow-on investments across a portfolio company's lifecycle.
Dolby Family Ventures joined as a new investor in Exciva's extended Series B in April, bringing the total round to €53M ($62M). The Germany-based biotech is developing Deraphan, a treatment for agitation in Alzheimer's patients.
Dakota Family Office Deal Tracker is a monthly publication covering direct investment activity by family offices globally, sourced from Dakota Marketplace data.