Alternative Investing Report - September 3, 2025

*as of 9/2; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, CL50

Industrial real estate sales reached $33.8 billion in the first half of 2025, a 15% increase year-over-year, though the price per square foot is up only 6% since 2022. Rents are up 6.1%, but the vacancy rate has increased to 9.1% nationally compared to just 2.8% in 2022. In-progress construction and completions have declined, so supply is likely to get tighter, which should reduce the vacancy rate going forward.

➨ TAKEAWAY: Industrial has consistently been the best performing sector within commercial real estate since the pandemic, and though its pace of growth has slowed, there is clearly still strong investor demand for properties. With the rise of AI creating new demand for data centers and other industrial real estate, expect the sector to continue its strong performance going forward.

Earlier this summer, Vincent CEO Eric Cantor moderated an event at Vestberry’s Venture Intelligence Day in New York, which brought together over 200 VC professionals to share and discuss the latest insights and trends shaping data-driven investing.

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🏀 Record trading card sales: For the third straight month, a new record was set for online sales of trading cards, with $416 million of value trading in August, up significantly from the previous $308 million record set in July.

🚀 Klarna prices shares: The Swedish fintech’s IPO looks imminent as it plans to offer more than 34 million shares at between $35-$37 per share, raising up to $1.27 billion at a valuation of up to $14 billion. Revisit our pre-IPO briefing on Klarna from earlier this year.

🏡 Housing market shifting: More than 80% of real estate agents surveyed say that the housing market is becoming more favorable to buyers, with the lowest proportion (68%) in the Midwest and the highest (96%) in the Southwest.

🚀 Healthtech funding: The first half of 2025 saw $7.9 billion of VC funding in the healthtech sector, putting it on pace for its best year since 2022, with AI-related companies generating the bulk of investor interest.

🪙 Spot trading rules clarified: In a joint statement, the SEC and CFTC said that existing law does not prevent U.S. or foreign exchanges from listing spot crypto products in the U.S., potentially opening the door to Bitcoin and others being listed on the Nasdaq or New York Stock Exchange.

🏢 CMBS delinquency grows: For the sixth straight month, loan delinquencies in commercial mortgage-backed securities increased, reaching 7.29%, up 185 basis points from this time last year.

The highly anticipated debut of the native token of the Trump-backed World Liberty Financial crypto platform took place yesterday, and it quickly became one of the top-30 coins by market cap, despite falling from a high of more than $0.32. Early investors who bought in at $0.015 and $0.05 reaped significant gains, though they were only allowed to sell 20% of their tokens. Not surprisingly, those who jumped in right away on the hype are now facing immediate losses. On paper, the Trump family’s holdings are now worth in excess of $5 billion, but their tokens are locked for the time being.