economy
Family offices stall deal-making during Iran conflict
While global uncertainty has weighed on deal count, family offices and corporate investors are still piling into megadeals.
TL;DR
- Family offices made 39 direct investments in March, a 25% decrease from February.
- A quarter of March investments were mega-rounds (over $100 million).
- Jeff Bezos' family office co-led a $1.03 billion seed round for AI startup Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI Labs).
- Other billionaires like Eric Schmidt and Mark Cuban also invested in AMI Labs.
- Global M&A activity saw a 26% rise in value but a 17% fall in deal count last quarter.
- Indian billionaire Azim Premji's family office made at least four investments in March, including leading a $450 million Series A for AI startup Rhoda AI.
- Rhoda AI aims to train industrial robots using video data.