Family office dealmaking doubled in February with bets on crab shells, nuclear reactors and more

Published Fri, Mar 7 202511:30 AM EST

Hayley Cuccinello @in/hayleycuccinello/@HCuccinello

Key Points

After a slow January, family offices made at least 48 direct investments in February, double that of the month prior, according to Fintrx.
Some of the most active family office investors made bold bets, like Laurene Powell Jobs' Emerson Collective backing a nuclear reactor startup.
One beneficiary, MarketLeap co-founder Mamoun Benkirane, told CNBC why he chose a family office to lead his startup's recent fundraise.

A version of this article first 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. Last month, family offices made at least 48 direct investments, double that of the month prior, according to data provided exclusively to CNBC by Fintrx, a private wealth intelligence platform. Two of the most active family office investors , Laurene Powell Jobs' Emerson Collective and Li Ka-shing's Horizons Ventures, participated in megarounds last month. Emerson Collective joined the $700 million fundraise for X-Energy , a nuclear reactor startup backed by Amazon. Meanwhile, Horizons Ventures co-led a $112 million round for Australian health tech Harrison.ai only one month after backing another diagnostics startup, Owlstone Medical. Soros Capital, the family office run by billionaire George Soros' son Robert, participated in a $350.7 million Series D round for Eikon Therapeutics. Led by Merck's former research chief, Roger Perlmutter, the drug discovery firm is testing several drug candidates for different types of cancer including melanoma and prostate cancer. In one of the month's few acquisitions by a family office, Pritzker Private Capital bought a majority stake in Americhem, a manufacturer that specializes in color additives for plastic; the financial terms were not disclosed. Founded by private equity investor and Hyatt hotels heir Tony Pritzker, PPC has previously acquired at least two other plastics companies and this month bought another industrial firm, Buckman. Here are seven noteworthy deals this month by family offices with at least $1.5 billion in assets: Some of the month's most innovative investments were signed by old-money European families behind well-known brands. Famille C, the family office of the heirs to Clarins, invested in French deep tech startup Spore.Bio, which develops rapid tests for bacteria to ensure quality control. First Kind, the investment firm owned by the Peugeot automaker family, also participated in the $23 million Series C round. Kirkbi, the Danish family office of the Kristiansen family behind Lego toys, backed Tidal Vision, a biotech based in Bellingham, Washington. Tidal Vision turns crab and shrimp shells into a nontoxic chemical called chitosan that can be used for many purposes including water purification and flame retardant. Entrepreneur Mamoun Benkirane told CNBC that family offices can be more willing to explore new ideas than traditional venture capital firms. In February, his Luxembourg-based e-commerce startup MarketLeap raised an $8 million Series A round led by Smedvig Ventures, a fourth-generation family office for the heirs to the Norwegian offshore oil rig company. Another family office participated in the round: Motier Ventures, owned by the Houzé family behind the French department store chain Galeries Lafayette. Benkirane said in the past, investors who are focused on subscription revenue have been turned off by MarketLeap's hybrid revenue model, which charges brands a monthly fee and takes a cut of profits in exchange for helping them scale their online sales. "As soon as you start pitching something that is different than what they usually hear, they shut down," Benkirane said of tier-one VC firms. "What we liked about Smedvig is that they tried to think from our perspective as opposed to bringing their own perspective and seeing whether we fit it." Going with a family office as a lead investor rather than a traditional VC can mean sacrificing name recognition. Benkirane said he thinks it's worth it, especially as family offices like Smedvig Ventures invest in only a handful of startups a year and can give their portfolio companies more attention. "My general advice, to be honest, is to stop caring about the name of your investor. That's all noise," he said. "If things go wrong, you want someone that's going to spend time with you as opposed to just saying, 'OK, I'm going to write off this company and focus on the next big one.'"