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- Alternative Investing Report - January 5, 2026
Alternative Investing Report - January 5, 2026
Happy New Year! A couple of AI-related transactions closed out 2025, a record number of trading cards were graded last year, AI dominated 2025’s biggest funding rounds, and art insiders give their predictions for 2026. Let’s dive in!
🎫 Request to join: Our in-person investor event, Capital & Cocktails, on January 13 in Manhattan. Featuring Vincent’s Slava Rubin and Lightstone Direct’s Sanford Blumenthal talking Innovation in private investing and real estate. Space is very limited.
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📈 2025 MARKETS
🤖 AI ACQUISTIONS
2025 was the year of AI, and the end of the year brought more major AI-related acquisitions. Following its massive $20 billion purchase/acquihire of Groq, chipmaker Nvidia is reportedly splashing out another $3 billion to buy the AI startup AI21 Labs. The AI systems developer was previously valued at $1.4 billion in 2023. Elsewhere, SoftBank agreed to purchase alternative asset manager DigitalBridge for $4 billion, strengthening its digital infrastructure footprint to take advantage of the AI-induced spike in demand.
➨ TAKEAWAY: Expect 2026 to bring more of the same as the AI industry matures and bigger players increase M&A activity. With AI chips poised for an even bigger 2026, Nvidia will have a lot of money to spend, and there are plenty of mid-sized targets. The Information is predicting that Microsoft will buy an AI coding startup, and other members of the Magnificent Seven are also likely to add to their AI portfolios in the coming year.
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🍸 CAPITAL & COCKTAILS
Join us on January 13 in Manhattan to talk private markets and real estate investing in an impressive venue. We’ll hear insightful commentary from Vincent co-founder Slava Rubin and Lightstone SVP Sanford Blumenthal, as we sip, nibble, and look ahead to the year to come. Requests will be reviewed for approval, and space is limited, so request an invitation before it fills.
📰 NOTABLE NEWS
⚾ Record grading numbers: More than 26 million trading cards were graded by major trading card authenticators in 2025, a 32% increase over 2024 and a record high. More than 70% of those cards were graded by PSA, and the biggest single category was Pokémon, which saw more than 16 million cards graded, nearly doubling year-over-year. The number of sports cards graded actually fell by 12% annually.
🚀 Biggest rounds of 2025: Fifteen startups secured funding rounds of $2 billion or more last year, led by OpenAI’s record-setting $40 billion round. Twelve of the top fifteen rounds came from AI startups, with only defense tech company Anduril, prediction market Polymarket, and crypto exchange Binance bucking the trend.
🎨 2026 Art predictions: ArtNews asked a number of art industry insiders for their thoughts on the upcoming year, and answers were mostly optimistic, with some predicting an increase in blue-chip artworks coming to auction from estate sales, rising interest in Old Masters, and the growing importance of Middle Eastern collectors.
🏢 CMBS delinquencies rise: The overall delinquency rate for commercial mortgage-backed securities rose four basis points to 7.3%, with lodging, industrial, and retail seeing gains, and office and multifamily seeing declines.
🪙 Trump media crypto token: Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of the social media platform Truth Social, is launching a new crypto token to distribute to its shareholders in partnership with Crypto.com. The launch date and other details have not yet been released.
🪙 Crypto M&A record: There was a record $8.6 billion in crypto M&A activity in 2025, nearly four times higher than in 2024, led by Coinbase’s $2.9 billion purchase of Derbit and Kraken’s $1.5 billion acquisition of NinjaTrader.
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📆 LOOKING FORWARD
Monday: The tech industry’s biggest showcase, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), kicks off in Las Vegas.
Wednesday: ADP private employment report released; Job openings and labor turnover survey (JOLTS) released.
Friday: December U.S. jobs report scheduled to be released; consumer sentiment report released.
Sunday: The 2026 Golden Globes movie and television awards will air starting at 8 PM ET.
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