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 in July after a strong June, with Dakota Marketplace tracking 61 direct investments worldwide, down from 73 in June. The top three sectors (Information Technology, Industrials, and Health Care) accounted for 1,059 of the 1,830 verified transactions recorded in Dakota Marketplace last month, representing 58% of all tracked deal activity. 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 July 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
445 transactions | $46.6B total value
Information Technology held the top spot in July for the third consecutive month, though deal count dipped from 477 in June to 445. ICONIQ Capital was among the most active family offices in the sector, participating in Munich-based defense AI firm Helsing's $1.8B Series E, which valued the company at $18B. ICONIQ also joined Prime Intellect's $130M Series A and NinjaOne's $400M round. Doerr Capital and Bezos Expeditions co-invested in CuspAI's $450M Series B, which valued the AI-powered materials discovery startup at $2.6B. Bezos Expeditions also participated in Pasadena-based quantum computing company Oratomic's $300M Series A. For fund managers, thematic specialization continues to raise more efficiently than generalist pitches: managers focused on specific sub-themes like AI infrastructure, defense AI, or cybersecurity should expect co-investment requests alongside primary commitments.
2. Industrials
396 transactions | $53.4B total value
Industrials climbed to second place in July by transaction count and led all sectors by dollar value at $53.4B, reflecting a concentration of large-scale defense and infrastructure deals. Helsing's $1.8B Series E was the month's headline transaction, with ICONIQ among the investors. Aglaé Ventures, a venture firm backed by Groupe Arnault, joined UK-based AI robotics company Humanoid's $152M Series A, which gave the company a post-money valuation of $1.35B. Managers raising industrials-focused capital should position around defense technology, AI-enabled manufacturing, and supply chain resilience, all of which map to documented family office investment priorities.
3. Health Care
218 transactions | $44.5B total value
Health Care ranked third in July, with deal count falling from 241 in June to 218, though it remains well above May's pace. Duquesne Family Office was among investors in a $70M Series C round for Ratio Therapeutics, a Boston-based radiopharmaceutical company advancing its ATLAS trial in advanced sarcomas. Jefferson River Capital backed two health-adjacent companies during the month: Norm Ai, which builds AI agents with embedded legal compliance, and Augmodo, a wearable Smartbadge for retail operations. Family offices pursue health care for both financial and mission alignment, which creates longer hold horizons. Managers with therapeutic area specialization or platform biotech strategies tend to resonate most.
4. Real Estate
199 transactions | $31.3B total value
Real Estate climbed to fourth place in July, up from its consistent position further down the ranking, with transaction count increasing to 199 from 150 in June. Pontegadea Inversiones, the family office of Inditex founder Amancio Ortega, made the month's biggest real estate deal with its €800M acquisition of Capital 8, a business center in Paris. 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, with data centers, logistics, and core commercial assets drawing the most consistent interest.
5. Financials
150 transactions | $22.5B total value
Financials ranked fifth in July, up from sixth in June, with activity spanning specialty finance, insurance, asset management, fintech infrastructure, and bank holding companies. The pullback of traditional bank lending continues to create opportunity in specialty credit platforms. Private credit strategies with specialty angles (asset-based lending, middle-market direct lending, and litigation finance) are actively gathering family office commitments.
Dakota Marketplace tracks direct investment activity from family offices across every sector in this list, with deal-level detail on stage, round size, co-investors, and portfolio 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
145 transactions | $25.2B total value
Consumer Discretionary ranked sixth in July, consistent with recent months. Sports asset interest that drove deal activity in May and June continued into July. Families with operating business backgrounds in consumer goods disproportionately deploy here, pattern-matching against the playbooks that built their original wealth. Consumer funds with operating partner benches, brand-building expertise, or specific channel specialization tend to raise most efficiently from family capital.
7. Consumer Staples
74 transactions | $15.4B total value
Consumer Staples moved to seventh in July, up from eighth in June. Activity concentrates in food and beverage platforms, household and personal care brands, and agriculture. The sector attracts family capital because of its cycle resilience and the prevalence of family-controlled companies available for minority stakes or generational transition deals. Managers raising capital for staples-focused strategies should emphasize pricing power through inflation cycles and multi-generational alignment with founder-led businesses.
8. Communication Services
65 transactions | $16.5B total value
Communication Services held eighth place in July. Activity spans media and entertainment, digital advertising, telecom infrastructure, streaming, and creator economy businesses. Doerr Capital participated in design platform Paper's $34M Series A, reflecting continued family office interest in creator and productivity tools. Capital in this sector often follows specific thematic conviction rather than sector-wide mandates. Specialization wins commitments here.
9. Materials
50 transactions | $27.2B total value
Materials ranked ninth by count in July but carries the second-highest dollar value after Industrials, reflecting large-scale transactions in specialty chemicals, metals and mining, and building products. CuspAI's $450M Series B, backed by Doerr Capital and Bezos Expeditions, sits at the intersection of AI and materials discovery, illustrating how family office capital is following the convergence of these two themes. Fund managers should position around energy transition supply chains and input security for domestic manufacturing.
10. Utilities
46 transactions | $19.1B total value
Utilities rounds out the top 10 in July, edging out Energy by transaction count. Doerr Capital backed energy storage company Antora Energy's $550M Series C, one of the month's notable clean energy transactions. Activity concentrates in renewable power generation, grid infrastructure, water utilities, and energy storage. Family offices deploy in Utilities for yield, inflation hedging, and long-duration asset exposure. Infrastructure funds with renewable generation, grid modernization, or water positioning raise efficiently from family offices building out alternatives allocations.
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, co-investors, and underlying portfolio 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 15 direct deals in industrial technology is a priority prospect for an industrial growth equity fund, even without prior fund commitments on record. Dakota's transaction data surfaces these families before competitors identify them.
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Thematic specialization wins over broad sector coverage. Family offices cluster direct investment in specific sub-themes: AI infrastructure within tech, biotech platforms within health care, electrification within materials. Sub-sector and co-investor filters match your fund's mandate to families with documented conviction in the same theme.
Filter by sector and sub-sector investment history, stage (venture, growth, buyout, credit) and deal size, geographic concentration, or co-investor overlap 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.
