Some family offices are writing smaller checks into younger startups even as U.S. venture capital concentrates in giant rounds for artificial-intelligence companies, CNBC reported Saturday¹.

Rounds of at least $100 million accounted for 87.5% of U.S. venture capital deployed in the first half of 2026, according to PitchBook figures cited by CNBC¹. Investors are racing to fund AI companies' large capital needs with bigger checks to fewer startups, the report said¹.

Jason Blanck, who started a namesake family office in 2024, told CNBC that large late-stage checks are often mistaken for lower risk¹. "I think there's a big misconception that writing large checks into these late-stage rounds de-risks investments," Blanck said¹. He said those deals can mean peak market multiples and slower growth¹.

John Morrissey, managing director of Shea Ventures, said multi-generational family offices can wait longer for a larger relative return¹. The Shea family, whose construction firm worked on the Golden Gate Bridge and Hoover Dam, has invested in venture capital since the late 1960s, CNBC reported¹. Morrissey said the goal is to sustain wealth and grow it tax-efficiently across generations, and that one investment compounding in the double digits can beat a short, high-return exit that returns cash to be redeployed¹.

Morrissey said he looks for funds whose limited partners prioritize investment multiple over internal rate of return¹. Large institutions and sovereign wealth funds often want capital back sooner, have different tax issues, and can put more money into a single round than most family offices, he said¹. He described offices on the scale of David Rubenstein or Josh Harris as exceptions, saying most family offices may have a couple of billion dollars and an operating business to fund, and cannot match an endowment such as Yale's¹.

Shea Ventures invests in startups directly and through funds including Shakti, a five-year-old firm that backs companies at inception, sometimes before product or revenue, CNBC said¹. Shakti partner and founder Keval Desai said lower valuations are available to investors willing to be unconventional¹. The fund backs AI-related startups in less crowded niches, including two robotics companies that collect garbage, one focused on space, according to the report¹.

Shea Ventures and Blanck Capital also invest in growth equity as a counterweight, CNBC reported¹. Blanck described a barbell of public equities plus a smaller sleeve of early-stage venture and secondaries¹. He has invested in Anthropic but highlighted Longshot Space Technology, which he said Blanck Capital backed from a 2023 pre-seed round and which has contracts with the U.S. Air Force, DARPA and the U.S. Navy¹.

The account is based on CNBC interviews and PitchBook data; it does not quantify how widespread the smaller-check approach is among family offices or compare realized returns of those bets with megadeal participation¹.