Azim Premji, Founder Chairman of Wipro, speaks at the inauguration of the Wipro Hydroelectric Power Plant in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India, August 22, 2024.
Vishal Bhatnagar | Nur Photo | Getty Images
A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter by Robert Frank, a weekly guide for high-net-worth investors and consumers. Sign up to receive future editions directly to your inbox.
The ultra-wealthy investment firm scaled back its trading arrangements in March as the Iran conflict roiled markets.
Family offices made 39 direct investments in companies last month, down 25% from February when adjusting for month length, according to data provided exclusively to CNBC by private wealth intelligence platform Fintrx.
That said, family offices that are still under contract are making bold bets. Fintrx said a quarter of its investments last month were part of mega-rounds, or funding of more than $100 million.
In March, Jeff Bezos’ eponymous family office co-led a $1.03 billion seed round for Advanced Machine Intelligence. The new startup, also known as AMI Labs, trains artificial intelligence models based on real-world sensory data rather than text.
Other boldfaced billionaires also participated in the fundraiser, including former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and serial entrepreneur Mark Cuban.
This trend of smaller but larger deals is also impacting corporate investors.
Total global M&A activity rose 26% year-on-year to $1.2 trillion in the quarter, but the number of deals fell 17%, according to LSEG data. According to LSEG, the second week of March was the worst week for global M&A in a year, falling below $33 billion.
However, some family offices continue to be transactionally prolific.
The family office of Indian billionaire Azim Premji made direct investments in at least four companies in March, according to Fintrx. The largest round Premji Invest led was a $450 million Series A for Rhoda AI, another startup developing new ways to train artificial intelligence models. Rhoda AI aims to train industrial robots with hundreds of millions of videos. Kleiner Perkins billionaire John Doerr also supported the round.
