Alternative Investing Report - February 26, 2026

*as of 2/25 Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, GOLD

The fintech startup Stripe announced that it has completed a new tender offer for its current and former employees that values the company at $159 billion, a nearly 50% increase over its September valuation. The company processes nearly $2 trillion in transactions and is on track to hit $1 billion in ARR this year. There are also now rumors that it is interested in acquiring rival PayPal, which would be a massive deal.

➨ TAKEAWAY: Almost every major non-AI startup has been overshadowed by the emergence of the OpenAIs and Anthropics of the world, but Stripe is a notable exception. It is the highest ranking non-AI company on Augment’s Power 20, and we discussed it at length last July in a pre-IPO briefing, back when it was valued at $90 billion.

In the newest episode of Smart Humans, Slava Rubin and Sacra's Jan-Erik Asplund discuss the emerging field of humanoid robotics, exploring the convergence of AI and robotics and the various use cases for robots. They look at the key players in the industry and the future outlook for the sector.

🪙 Crypto bounceback: The crypto market rose by more than 5% yesterday to snap a losing streak, with Bitcoin nearing the $70,000 mark, and Ethereum, XRP, and Solana each posting double-digit percentage gains. The rally coincided with a broader market rally that followed Nvidia’s strong quarterly results that restored some investor confidence in AI-related equities.

🚀 VC emerging opportunities: Pitchbook looked at the current trends in 11 different VC sectors, ranking the SaaS sector first when looking at the highest expected successful exit rate, followed by defense tech and cybersecurity. Agtech, gaming, and healthtech were the three sectors with the lowest expected successful exit rates.

🏡 Homebuying ages falling: In a good sign for the market, and the country, the average age of a first-time homebuyer in the U.S. fell from 36 to 35 in 2025, and the average age of a repeat buyer fell from 52 to 47. This change is due to a small improvement in affordability and the emergence of a buyer’s market, which has opened the door for more Gen Z and Millennial buyers.

💵 Private credit defaults: UBS released a report that warns private credit defaults could rise as high as 15% as concerns over AI disruption continue to hit the sector.

🏢 Self-storage slowdown: National asking rents for self-storage fell by 0.2% year-over-year in January, with non-climate controlled units taking a bigger hit than climate-controlled units.

🎨 Contemporary auction results: Sotheby’s Contemporary Curated auction netted $19.6 million in sales, led by a $3.78 million sale of an Alma Thomas painting that nearly doubled its $2 million high estimate.

In a tragic story that lives at the intersection of concerns about teen AI chatbot usage and AI state surveillance, top officials from OpenAI met with Canadian government officials about mass shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar’s use of their ChatGPT model. Van Rootselaar’s account was banned last June for “misuses in furtherance of violent activities" but OpenAI chose not to alert law enforcement. Earlier this month, she killed eight people in British Columbia before taking her own life. Now, the Canadian government wants to know about OpenAI’s safety protocols and how the company decides whether to report users to the police. AI companies will have to walk a fine line here, as its users want to feel like their interactions with chatbots are confidential, but every tragedy that gets linked to AI - rightly or wrongly - is bad for the industry. Particularly troublesome are concerns that chatbot usage can lead teens and children to commit acts of violence they otherwise would not have.