Laurene Powell Jobs, founder and president of Emerson Collective, speaks at the Milken Institute’s 29th Annual Global Conference at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California on May 4, 2026.
Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty Images
A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide for wealthy investors and consumers. Register to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
Investment firms of ultra-rich families intensified their trading in April after a slowdown the previous month triggered by the outbreak of war in Iran.
Family offices made 55 direct investments in companies last month, up from 39 in March according to data provided exclusively to CNBC by Fintrx, a private wealth intelligence platform.
Nearly a third of April’s investments were in healthcare and life sciences companies.
Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective, her investment and philanthropy firm, has participated in fundraising for two startups, a seed round for Ultralight and a Series A round for Stipple Bio. Ultralight, an artificial intelligence software platform for personalized healthcare, raised $9.3 million in seed funding from Emerson Collective and other investors. Stipple Bio, a developer of targeted cancer therapies, raised $100 million in this round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Family office investments in healthcare are often inspired by personal experience. Emerson Collective’s investment in Stipple Bio was managed by Yosemite, an oncology-focused venture fund founded by Reed Jobs, Powell Jobs’ son with Steve Jobs. THE Apple The co-founder died in 2011 from pancreatic cancer.
Also in April, Dolby Family Ventures participated in a €53 million ($62 million) Series B round for Exciva, a developer of treatments for agitation in Alzheimer’s patients. The impact-focused family office was founded by David Dolby in 2014, about a year after his father, billionaire engineer Ray Dolby, died from complications of Alzheimer’s disease and acute leukemia.
In a survey released by JP Morgan Private Bank in February, half of family offices cited healthcare innovation as a top investment theme, second only to artificial intelligence at 65%.
This influx of private capital comes during reductions and disruptions in federal funding for health care research. A budget proposal released by the Trump administration in April aims to cut an additional $5 billion from the National Institutes of Health.