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Gemini Co-founders Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss attend the company’s IPO at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City, U.S., Sept. 12, 2025.

Jeenah Moon | Reuters

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.

Investment firms of ultra-rich families have scaled back their deal-making throughout 2025, and the last quarter of the year is not off to a promising start. In October, family offices made 51 direct investments, down 63% on an annual basis, according to data provided exclusively to CNBC by private wealth platform Fintrx.

However, family offices are still backing massive fundraises for artificial intelligence companies.

Last month, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss’ namesake investment firm joined a $1.4 billion Series E round for Crusoe, boosting the data center developer’s valuation to $10 billion. Hillspire, the family office of ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, participated in a $2 billion Series B round for Reflection, the open-source AI model lab now valued at $8 billion.

Family office investors were also involved in earlier headline-making rounds, such as Commonwealth Fusion’s $863 million Series B2 fundraising. Hillspire, Laurene Powell Jobs’ Emerson Collective and Stanley Druckenmiller’s firm, Duquesne Family Office, joined the power plant developer’s round, which was announced in August.

While family offices are placing fewer bets, they haven’t soured on large rounds, according to a recent report by PwC.

In the first half of 2025, family offices made 23% fewer deals, but their value only fell by 18% on an annual basis, per PwC. The proportion of family office deals in excess of $100 million held steady at 15% and those over $500 million only edged down by 1 percentage point to 3%.

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Supersized rounds for AI firms have helped to prop up deal values. In the first half of this year, family offices made nearly the same number of investments in AI and machine learning compared with the same period in 2023, but deal value nearly tripled to $123.3 billion, per PwC.

But even before the AI wave, family offices were shifting their preference to larger deals, according to the consultancy. Over the past decade, the proportion of investments below $25 million has shrunk from 70% to 59%. Deals between $25 million and $100 million now make up 26%, up 6 percentage points from 2015, and the share of deals worth more than $100 million has increased from 9% to 15%.

The consultancy’s report credited the trend to family offices seeking bigger returns and their “rising ambitions as major players in the global deals landscape.”

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Snap stock surges 13% after announcing Perplexity AI deal, reporting strong revenue

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Snap stock surges 13% after announcing Perplexity AI deal, reporting strong revenue

Scott Olson | Getty Images

Snap stock surged 13% on Thursday after announcing a $400 million deal with Perplexity AI and releasing its third-quarter financial results.

The company said that it will be integrating Perplexity’s artificial intelligence-powered search engine directly into the Snapchat app.

As part of the agreement, Perplexity is set to pay the social media platform $400 million over one year “through a combination of cash and equity,” according to Snap’s letter to investors.

The social media company expects to start seeing revenue from the deal in 2026.

“Snap’s strategic partnership with Perplexity AI represents a meaningful step toward building out alternative revenue streams, as similar to Pinterest, large advertisers in the US seem to be pulling back from advertising on the platform,” Deutsche’s Benjamin Black said in a note Thursday.

Snap posted solid third-quarter results, reporting revenue of $1.51 billion, which beat LSEG estimates of $1.49 billion.

The company’s daily active users increased 8% year over year to 477 million, surpassing StreetAccount’s projection of 476 million.

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Duolingo stock plunges 27% on light guidance as company prioritizes user growth

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Duolingo stock plunges 27% on light guidance as company prioritizes user growth

Cheng Xin | Getty Images

Duolingo‘s stock cratered 27% on lighter-than-expected guidance as the language learning platform zeroed in on user growth in lieu of near-term monetization.

“We have made a slight shift over the last quarter in how we invest, and we’re investing a lot more in long-term things because we see that as such a big opportunity ahead of us,” CEO and co-founder Luis von Ahn told CNBC’s Jon Fortt.

For the current quarter, Duolingo expects bookings to range between $329.5 million and $335.5 million, falling short of a $344.3 million estimate from FactSet. Adjusted EBITDA was forecasted to range between $75.4 million and $78.8 million, versus the $80.5 million expected.

Duolingo grew paid subscribers to 11.5 million and topped the 11.38 million expected by StreetAccount. But daily and monthly active users came up short at 50.5 million and 135.3 million, respectively. Analysts polled by StreetAccount had forecasted 51.2 million daily and 137.4 million monthly users.

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Over the last several months, Duolingo has implemented a slew of new artificial intelligence tools, including an interactive video call feature to try and lure more paying subscribers. The company has also rolled out more language courses in record time with the help of AI.

“There are experiments that put monetization and user growth at odds, and part of my job has been, always, arbitrating between these two,” von Ahn told CNBC.

Over the last few months, he said the company has been “really shifting that trade off to be much more towards user growth.”

Duolingo’s revenues grew 41% during the quarter to $272 million, surpassing the $260 million estimate from analysts polled by LSEG. Total bookings jumped 33% year over year to about $282 million and also beat estimates.

Net income grew to $292.2 million, or $5.95 per share, up from $23.4 million, or 49 cents per share in the year-ago period. The company said net income was helped by a one-time tax income benefit of $222.7 million.

Duolingo also boosted its full-year revenue guidance to between $1.0275 billion and $1.0315 billion. That’s up from its previous guidance of $1.01 billion to $1.02 billion.

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Matthew McConaughey, Ryan Reynolds-backed password manager tops $400 million in ARR on AI tail winds

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Matthew McConaughey, Ryan Reynolds-backed password manager tops 0 million in ARR on AI tail winds

Ryan Reynolds (L), Scarlett Johansson (C), and Matthew McConaughy

Reuters

Cybersecurity startup 1Password, by Ryan Reynolds, Matthew McConaughey and Scarlett Johansson, has topped more than $400 million in annual recurring revenue, the company said Thursday.

“We believe we’re at a pretty significant inflection point in our journey,” CEO David Faugno told CNBC. “We’re set up for this next wave of disruption, which I think is an even bigger opportunity for us.”

Faugno said he expects the company to surpass a billion dollars in ARR over the next “several years,” benefiting from a shift in the threat landscape due to artificial intelligence and more complex protection needs.

In 2023, 1Password announced that it had surpassed $250 million in ARR.

AI innovation has accelerated demand for better cybersecurity tools to counteract sophisticated and complex cyberattacks. Big deals from Palo Alto Networks and Alphabet, and initial public offerings from Netskope and SailPoint have also put the sector in the spotlight.

Toronto-based 1Password was founded in 2005 and counts IBM, Perplexity AI, Salesforce and the Golden State Warriors among its customers, and it’s also signed a multiyear deal with Formula 1 team Oracle Red Bull Racing. The company says it secures more than 1.3 billion human and machine credentials and works with 180,000 business customers.

Additionally, 1Password on Thursday announced it is bringing on former ChargePoint and Barracuda Networks executive Michael Hughes. Former Qualtrics and SAP executive John Torrey will join as chief business officer.

Faugno said both executives complement the company’s strategy to lure larger enterprise customers.

Over the last year, 1Password has undergone a major C-suite shake-up.

Longtime leader Jeff Shiner, who ran 1Password for 13 years, transitioned into executive chair of the board in July. Faugno, who had been promoted to co-CEO a few months earlier, took over the role solely at that time. Faugno joined 1Password in 2023 as president and operating chief.

To date, 1Password has raised about $950 million and is valued at $6.8 billion, according to Pitchbook data. Other investors include actor Justin Timberlake, comedian Trevor Noah, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz and investment firm Iconiq, according to Pitchbook.

Faugno told CNBC that the company is weighing a possible IPO in 2026 or 2027, but isn’t “rushing out to go public.” He said 1Password remains focused on providing the best tools for its customers.

“We control our own destiny,” he said. “From a profitability perspective, we have investors that are playing the long game with us.”

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