Data sourced from Dakota Marketplace, the global LP and GP intelligence platform trusted by thousands of investment professionals. Learn More | Book a Demo
Family office direct investment activity cooled further in August, with Dakota Marketplace tracking 1,504 verified transactions worldwide, down from 1,830 in July. The top three sectors (Information Technology, Industrials, and Real Estate) accounted for 814 of those transactions, representing 54% of all tracked deal activity for the month. The sector breakdown below draws from the same dataset that powers Dakota's Global Family Office 2025 Report.
The sectors below are ranked by direct investment activity in August 2026, not survey-reported preferences. This reflects where family capital actually moved last month across venture, growth equity, buyouts, private credit, and co-investments.
For fund managers raising capital, this is the signal that matters: family offices pattern-match on sectors where they already have direct conviction, and last month's deployment is the clearest forward indicator of where commitments will follow.
In this article, we break down the top 10 sectors by deal count, with specific transactions from each to show where family office conviction is concentrating right now.
Top 10 Sectors by Family Office Direct Investment Activity
1. Information Technology
334 transactions | $54.8B total value
Information Technology held the top spot in August for the fourth consecutive month, though deal count fell from 445 in July to 334. It was also the highest-value sector of the month by a wide margin. The largest deal of the month came from IT: a $12.9B strategic acquisition of Hugging Face on August 26, followed by a $7.0B strategic acquisition of OpenRouter on August 18 and a $5.0B minority investment in Databricks on August 13. A $5.0B asset purchase of a portfolio of instrumentation businesses closed the same day as the Hugging Face deal. BioCatch drew a $2.4B strategic acquisition on August 3. For fund managers, thematic specialization continues to raise more efficiently than generalist pitches: managers focused on specific sub-themes like AI infrastructure, developer tooling, or data platforms should expect large-check co-investment interest alongside primary commitments.
2. Industrials
293 transactions | $21.6B total value
Industrials held second place in August by transaction count, with deal count falling from 396 in July to 293. Kelvion's $3.4B carve-out divestiture on August 31 led the sector, followed by Maverick Power's $2.3B strategic acquisition on August 24 and a $2.0B minority investment in Firmus Technologies on August 7. Aeroplan drew a $1.8B minority investment on August 11, and automation manufacturer Hadrian raised a $1.37B Series D on August 6. Managers raising industrials-focused capital should position around power infrastructure, automation, and supply chain resilience, all of which map to documented family office investment priorities this month.
3. Real Estate
187 transactions | $32.8B total value
Real Estate climbed to third place in August, edging out Health Care by two deals after trailing it in July. Transaction count held roughly flat at 187, but total deal value jumped to $32.8B, driven by SEGRO Plc's $18.8B take-private on August 4, the largest real estate transaction Dakota tracked this year. H&R Real Estate Investment Trust followed with a $2.4B take-private on August 11, and MarineMax added a $1.5B bolt-on acquisition on August 10. Family offices strongly prefer direct exposure over fund vehicles in this sector. Managers raising real estate capital should come prepared to discuss co-investment opportunities as part of the pitch, and the August data shows renewed family office appetite for taking public real estate platforms private.
4. Health Care
185 transactions | $27.5B total value
Health Care slipped to fourth in August, falling just short of Real Estate by two deals, with total count down from 218 in July. Lantheus Holdings drew the sector's largest deal, an $8.0B bolt-on acquisition on August 3, followed by Thorne's $3.8B carve-out on August 4. Merida Biosciences ($2.875B, August 31), Precision Medicine Group ($2.25B, August 25), and Kartos Therapeutics ($1.75B, August 21) rounded out the month's largest health care transactions. Family offices pursue health care for both financial and mission alignment, which creates longer hold horizons. Managers with diagnostics, therapeutics, or platform biotech strategies tend to resonate most with this investor base.
5. Financials
115 transactions | $26.7B total value
Financials held fifth place in August, with activity spanning banking, insurance, specialty finance, and fintech infrastructure. Webster Financial Corporation's $12.3B strategic acquisition on August 20 was the sector's standout deal, followed by Steadfast Group's $5.51B take-private on August 21 and a $2.0B reverse merger involving Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. II on August 28. Private credit and specialty insurance platforms continue to draw sustained family office interest as the pullback in traditional bank lending creates room for alternative lenders.
Dakota Marketplace tracks direct investment activity from family offices across every sector in this list, with deal-level detail on stage, round size, and target companies. If you're raising capital and want to know which family offices are already investing in your sector, see it here.
6. Consumer Discretionary
112 transactions | $18.2B total value
Consumer Discretionary held sixth place in August. Sports asset interest that drove deal activity earlier in the year continued into the month, with a $12.0B strategic acquisition of the Los Angeles Lakers on August 12 standing as the sector's largest transaction and the second-largest deal of the month across every sector. Leggett & Platt drew a $2.5B strategic acquisition on August 26, and Pep Boys' Puerto Rico operations sold for $700M on August 20. Families with operating business backgrounds in consumer goods disproportionately deploy here, pattern-matching against the playbooks that built their original wealth. Consumer funds with brand-building expertise or specific channel specialization tend to raise most efficiently from family capital.
7. Materials
53 transactions | $29.8B total value
Materials ranked seventh by count in August but carried the third-highest dollar value of any sector, reflecting two mega-deals: Element Solutions' $14.5B strategic acquisition on August 28 and Lhoist North America's $13.5B strategic acquisition on August 24. Together those two transactions accounted for more than 90% of the sector's total deal value for the month. Fund managers should note how concentrated Materials dollar volume is around specialty chemicals platforms, and should position around energy transition supply chains and input security for domestic manufacturing when approaching this investor base.
8. Communication Services
41 transactions | $3.0B total value
Communication Services held eighth place in August. Lingxi Games drew the sector's largest deal, a $2.0B platform investment on August 17, more than two-thirds of the sector's total value for the month. oOh!media's $631M take-private followed on August 9. AI-adjacent activity continued further down the sector, with Wrtn Technologies and Stability AI each raising $76M rounds in the back half of the month. Capital in this sector often follows specific thematic conviction rather than sector-wide mandates. Specialization wins commitments here.
9. Utilities
39 transactions | $10.2B total value
Utilities held ninth place in August. ReNew Energy Global's $2.8B take-private on August 11 led the sector, followed by New Mexico Gas Company's $1.25B platform investment on August 18. Two separate $1.0B Series rounds, Valar on August 4 and Base Power Company on August 3, point to continued family office interest in grid-scale energy storage. Family offices deploy in Utilities for yield, inflation hedging, and long-duration asset exposure. Infrastructure funds with grid modernization or energy storage positioning raise efficiently from family offices building out alternatives allocations.
10. Consumer Staples
37 transactions | $3.2B total value
Consumer Staples rounds out the top 10 in August, edging out Energy's 29 transactions for the final spot despite Energy carrying more than four times the dollar value ($15.3B). Jamieson Wellness drew a $1.427B strategic acquisition on August 6, and Saputo's dairy division sold for $1.34B on August 14. Kenvue's feminine care business changed hands for $284M on August 19. Activity concentrates in food and beverage platforms and household brands, a sector family offices favor for its cycle resilience and the prevalence of family-controlled companies available for minority stakes or generational transition deals.
From Sector Trends to Targeted Outreach With Dakota Marketplace
Sector-level patterns like the ones above only drive fundraising outcomes when you can act on them at the family-by-family level. Dakota Marketplace is built for that workflow, tracking direct investment activity across every sector covered in this post with deal-level visibility into stage, round size, and target companies. Every record reflects an actual deal that closed, not a response to a questionnaire about investment intentions.
What family offices do with their capital is more reliable than what they say about their capital. Dakota tracks the former.
Two patterns from the data consistently shape how fund managers work the database:
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Direct investment history is the best predictor of future fund commitment. A family office with a documented run of direct deals in a given sector is a priority prospect for a fund manager raising in that same space, even without prior fund commitments on record. Dakota's transaction data surfaces these families before competitors identify them.
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Deal value concentration matters as much as deal count. Materials ranked seventh by transaction count in August but third by dollar value, driven almost entirely by two mega-deals. Filtering by deal size alongside sector tells a more complete story than count alone.
Filter by sector and sub-sector investment history, stage (venture, growth, buyout, credit) and deal size, or geographic concentration to build a targeted prospect list.
The family offices investing directly in your sector today are the fund commitments you should be sourcing for next quarter. Book a demo of Dakota Marketplace and start finding them.
