Alternative Investing Report - August 28, 2025

*as of 8/27; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, CL50

This year has seen the most exits for unicorn startups since 2021, with both IPOs and M&A on the rise, and overall values for exits up significantly compared to the last two years. So far in 2025, 13 U.S.-based startups valued at more than a billion dollars have gone public, compared to 8 for all of 2024. There has been $84 billion worth of M&A across 22 transactions, the highest dollar value on record, thanks largely to Alphabet’s $32 billion acquisition of the cybersecurity company Wiz.

➨ TAKEAWAY: While exit activity is still not close to the peak values of 2020 and 2021, it is trending in the right direction after years of stagnation. This is a welcome development for VC firms and investors who may finally be able to access some liquidity and realize returns. As successful exits become more commonplace, more companies could pursue public offerings or acquisitions, and investors will be encouraged to commit capital with the hopes that it will not be tied up for an unreasonable amount of time.

🤖 Anthropic settles lawsuit: The AI startup is settling a lawsuit brought by book authors who had accused the company of illegally downloading and copying content to train its models. Details of the settlement have not been made public, but it could be an important precedent as the first major agreement between artists and a major AI company looking to avoid litigation.

🚀 Klarna plans to go public: The Swedish fintech startup, covered in a pre-IPO briefing earlier this year, is planning to go public next month at a valuation between $13 billion and $14 billion, close to its last valuation of $14.6 billion.

🏢 Discounted office properties: 46% of all office properties sold so far this year have done so as a lower price than their previous sale, up from 20% of properties that sold at a discount in 2021. Higher-end properties have been hit particularly hard, with 71% of those sales coming at a discount.

🎨 Art market in Asia: Though art sales have decreased in Japan and Korea, the decline has been smaller than the rest of the world, and the industry’s eyes are on September art fairs held in those countries to see how they perform.

🏡 More sellers than buyers: While the number of sellers and buyers in the housing market are both decreasing, there are 36.3% more sellers than buyers, the largest gap between the two since at least 2013.

🪙 JPMorgan investing in crypto fund: AI-powered crypto hedge fund Numerai received a $500 million commitment from JPMorgan Asset Management, more than doubling the fund’s AUM and causing Numerai’s native token NMR to rise in value by nearly 40%.

💵 AI credit bubble: A significant portion of the money financing the AI boom is coming from private credit, leading to concerns that a bubble bursting could disproportionately affect the asset class.

👛 Heritage coin auction: The weeklong event has attracted nearly $50 million in bids, with more than 20 coins selling for six-figures or more, led by a 1728 Dutch East Indies gold coin that sold for $360,000.

A new study from Stanford University found that AI is having a significant negative impact on job prospects for entry-level workers in the U.S. One of the biggest concerns about the emergence of AI is that it is going to cause a major disruption in the job market, and while this is just one study that has not been peer-reviewed, this is the first piece of evidence that shows those concerns could be coming true. There have been “substantial” declines in employment, particularly for workers ages 22-25 whose skills are the most easily replaced by AI. While the short-term benefits for companies are clear, there could be long-term drawbacks, as those entry-level workers never gain the experience needed to advance up the ladder with skills that may not be as easily replicated by AI (yet). The effects on the overall economy could also be devastating long-term, especially as AI keeps improving and can start taking over more jobs in more industries.