Alternative Investing Report - July 22, 2026

*as of 7/21; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, GOLD

Global venture funding topped $200 billion for the second quarter in a row, with the first half of the year breaking the all-time record for any six month stretch. However, deal count collapsed to slightly more than 7,000 transactions, the lowest for any quarter in more than a decade, as mega-rounds ($100M+) were responsible for more than 81% of all deployed capital. In fact, OpenAI’s $122 billion round and Anthropic’s $95 billion across two raises makes up more than half of all venture funding so far in 2026, highlighting just how concentrated VC has become.

➨ TAKEAWAY: The record-breaking numbers are essentially an illusion, and do not reflect the overall health of the VC industry. The majority of venture dollars flowing to two companies and one sector has left earlier stage startups to compete over a shrinking part of the overall pie. For investors, this could lead to more favorable deals as companies search for capital at less favorable terms or existing shareholders look to exit on secondary markets.

Vincent's Slava Rubin is joined by Sacra's Jan-Erik Asplund to explore the rapidly growing AI infrastructure market, focusing on Fluidstack and other key companies alongside technological trends and investment opportunities. They discuss the energy demands of AI, the business models of neoclouds, and the risks and rewards of investing in this dynamic space.

🏡 Starter home market update: The price of a typical “starter home” - defined as those priced at 80% of the area’s median price - has jumped from $256,000 to $344,000 since 2019. However, the number of affordable homes is growing nationwide but remain below pre-pandemic levels, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest.

🏡 Boomers still want big houses: Meanwhile, on the other end of the housing spectrum, Baby Boomers are increasingly buying even larger homes rather than downsizing, making it more difficult for younger generations to buy. Boomers still make up the largest share of home buyers in the U.S., and own the most homes with three bedrooms or more.

🏢 Cap rates staying steady: While most commercial real estate sectors saw cap rates stay flat in Q1, both senior housing and retail strip malls saw significant cap rate compression, boosting property values as investor demand continues to grow. There were regional differences as well, with the Bay Area seeing cap rate compression across multiple sectors, while Seattle and Boston saw slight increases.

💵 New private credit benchmarks: Private market data company Allvue Systems launched a set of private credit benchmarks designed to bring some transparency to the notoriously opaque market. The platform aims to help fund managers and investors to better compare risk and returns between the market average and their own potential deals.

🤖 Bessent threatens sanctions: The U.S. Treasury Secretary warned that the administration is considering targeted sanctions against Chinese AI companies that are being accused of stealing IP from U.S. companies. This warning comes as Chinese startups DeepSeek and Moonshot AI are releasing models that compare to and sometimes outperform those coming from OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and others.

🥃 Most expensive whiskeys: The list of the highest-priced bottles of whiskey ever sold at auction is led by Macallan 60 year-old scotches, which take up the top six slots and eight of the top ten. Other notables are 50+ year-old Japanese whiskeys from the Karuizawa and Yamazaki distilleries.

It’s not often that a coin in the top-100 by market cap falls by nearly 90% in one day, but the price of DEXE dropped from nearly $50 at the start of Tuesday to less than $5 by the end. Its price had steadily been increasing since it was at $10 in May, though it had been sitting around $2 in February. DEXE is the native token of a decentralized infrastructure protocol that lets web3 communities build, manage, and govern Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). It’s not entirely clear why it crashed so hard, outside of possible market manipulation, though it is also not clear why it had gone up over 2000% in the past five months. It is a good reminder that even for tokens with billion-dollar market caps, the rug can be pulled out at any moment.