Understanding the deals family offices are doing helps with benchmarking if you run one and spot where the money is flowing if you’re raising capital.

But it’s not always easy to interpret data when no one can quite agree on what a “family office” actually is.

PwC has released their Global Family Office Deals Study 2025, a 40-page report that tracks volume and value of deals across asset classes.

The headline grabber: PwC says the insights come from 20,000 family offices.

This is a significant increase on most global family office reports: UBS surveyed 317 family offices, Citi 346 and Goldman 245.

This report isn’t from surveys though: most data sets cite the source as “Pitchbook and Mergermarket, as well as an industry-leading global database of properties and transactions.”

The large number of family offices in the study makes more sense given PwC’s broader definition of the term:

So while it’s branded as a family office report, it actually covers much more than traditional family offices.

It highlights the ongoing mystery of how many family offices actually exist.

Deloitte last estimated around 8,000 worldwide, yet Hong Kong and Singapore together claim more than 5,000.

Where most family offices are based is another gray area. As PwC puts it:

“Singapore takes top spot by a wide margin – with its roster of 2,720 family offices being more than 2.5 times the number in second-placed New York City, and more than three times the number in third-placed London.”

Hong Kong might have something to say about this, claiming last year they had 2,700.

PwC reports that “only 190 new family offices were set up worldwide in 2024,” yet Singapore’s MAS alone recorded 600 new registrations that same year. Even accounting for relocations, the numbers don’t quite line up.

The data may be fuzzy, but it still offers an interesting window into how families are investing today. Let’s look at the data.

A surprising split: The report notes that only 14% of family offices are created through a liquidity event, 86% still have an active operating business.

And here’s where the money comes from:

Deal volume in the first half of 2025 hit its lowest point in a decade. PwC notes “net deal volume and declining net value in H1 2025 pointing to increased ‘cashing out.’”

In other words, families are selling more than they’re buying, a cooling market mood after years of aggressive deal flow.

Venture capital and private equity made up 50% of deals in the first half of 2025, both steadily rising over the past decade.

PwC notes these “shifts indicate an increasing focus on higher-risk, higher-reward investments” echoing the broader trend toward direct, active ownership.

69% of investments are ‘club deals’ where families invest alongside others, which fits the perception of family offices being wary to go it alone, and as the report says, “underscoring their desire for risk-sharing and resource pooling”.

Over the past decade, deal flow has gradually tilted toward Europe, with a recent uptick in activity in the United States.

The US appears to be regaining momentum as a key destination for family capital, even as Europe remains a steady base.

VC investment volume dropped nearly 20%, yet total value rose almost 40% over the last year: fewer deals, but bigger tickets.

VC exit data has remained relatively steady over the past three years.

The US and UK lead in terms of attracting VC investment, with the UAE having the highest growth in the last year, moving into third place ahead of Germany.

In terms of investment sectors, SaaS and AI lead the way.

Private equity deals were mostly stable in terms of volume and value over the last two years, with the notable change being a significant increase in value of exits, despite lower number of exits.

Software ranked second in deal volume (after commercial services) but topped both deal value and growth, signaling tech’s enduring pull for family capital.

The UAE saw the biggest increase in PE deal value over the past 12 months.

M&A activity has been sliding steadily, and PwC notes that family office “participation in global M&A transactions is relatively modest, accounting for only 5% of overall deal value between July 2024 and June 2025.”

Fund investments have been consistently volatile over the last decade with the chart looking like a silhouette of the Alps.

Lastly, the report showed a 20% increase in the number of real estate investments in the recent 12-month period, but still way lower than the rest of the decade.

It’s still unclear how many of these deals truly come from dedicated family offices versus family-owned companies or investment holding structures.

Deal volume and value could look very different if the data only covered single family offices and/or traditional multi-family offices.

Even so, PwC’s report remains a useful barometer of broader family capital flows: a noisy dataset, but one that still reveals where the world’s wealthiest families are putting their money.

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