A family office is a private organization that manages the wealth of one wealthy family, or a small number of them. Unlike a bank or an asset manager, it answers only to the family it serves. Its job can include investing, tax and estate planning, philanthropy, and sometimes running the family's businesses, but at the center of nearly every family office is one task: keeping and growing the family's capital across generations.
The two main types
A single family office (SFO) serves one family. It usually exists because the family's wealth, often from selling or running a business, became large enough to justify its own investment team.
A multi family office (MFO) serves several families. Many started as single family offices and opened their doors to others to share costs. MFOs tend to be more structured, with defined processes and reporting, and behave more like boutique wealth managers.
In practice the borders are soft. Family holding companies, private investment firms owned by one family, and venture funds backed by a single family all behave like family offices even when they use different names. In our own database of 2,700 active family offices, 73% are single family offices and 19% are multi family offices, with family-owned investment firms making up the rest. For a deeper comparison, see single vs multi family office.
How family offices invest
Family offices are far more active investors than most people assume. From our data on offices with a public presence: 43% invest in startups directly, 39% do private equity deals, and 28% invest in real estate. Public equities, impact investing, private credit, and hedge funds follow. Full numbers are in our family office statistics report.
A few traits shape how they behave as investors:
- Patient capital. No fund lifecycle forces them to exit. They can hold for decades.
- Flexible mandates. A family office can do a seed check, a buyout, and a land deal in the same year if the family wants to.
- Personal decision-making. Decisions often sit with the principal or a small team, so conviction and trust matter more than committee process.
- Roots in an industry. Most family wealth came from an operating business, and offices often prefer sectors they know from the inside.
Why capital raisers target family offices
For founders and fund managers, family offices offer real advantages: they move on their own judgment, they co-invest with other families, and they are less crowded than institutional channels. The tradeoffs are opacity and pace. Many offices keep a low profile on purpose, and some take months to decide. If you plan to raise from them, start with our practical guide to raising capital from family offices.
How to find family offices
There is no public registry. Family offices rarely advertise, and many operate behind neutral names. The practical paths are LinkedIn research, personal networks, industry events, and specialized databases. If you go the database route, look for verified data with named decision makers and check how the provider validates its records. That is the entire reason our database of active family offices is reviewed line by line by humans, and why you can test a free sample first.
For a wider view of the market, our comparison of family office databases breaks down how different providers verify their data.