Analysis
A cluster of stories this week shows venture firms increasingly deploying capital outside traditional startup equity, into professional sports ownership and physical collectibles, as TechCrunch documented and Fortune separately reported.
- Thrive Capital / Thrive Eternal -- Joshua Kushner's growth firm launched a standalone, permanent-capital vehicle explicitly built to hold 'iconic franchises and cultural institutions' for decades. It started with a stake in the San Francisco Giants, then, with former Disney CEO Bob Iger joining as co-owner, bought the Los Angeles Lakers outright for a record $12.5 billion.
- Collaborative Fund -- the 15-year-old, New York-based generalist venture firm, with roughly $1 billion under management, is taking a stake in soccer club D.C. United and its stadium, Audi Field -- investing out of the same early-stage fund it uses for seed and Series A checks, rather than a dedicated vehicle like Thrive's.
- Premier Lacrosse League -- closed a $100 million Series E in June led by Ares Management and Joe Tsai, with additional participation from ESPN, actor Glen Powell and former Wrexham A.F.C. co-owner Rob McElhenney, the largest capital raise in the history of professional lacrosse.
- Griffin Gaming Partners -- co-founder and managing director Peter Levin has personally amassed roughly 500,000 trading cards, including about 100,000 Pokemon cards, framing collectibles as 'safer places to store hard-earned cash' against a national debt exceeding $40 trillion and Treasury yields near 5%.
“- Collaborative Fund -- the 15-year-old, New York-based generalist venture firm, with roughly $1 billion under management, is taking a stake in soccer club D.C.”
The numbers Levin cites are real: Pokemon cards generated a roughly 3,821% return between 2004 and 2025, versus the S&P 500's 483% gain over the same period, and a Pikachu Illustrator card sold for about $16.5 million in February 2026.
None of these allocations are subject to the diligence, reporting or liquidity standards of a normal venture portfolio company. Trophy-asset and collectible prices are notoriously reflexive -- driven by the same small pool of wealthy buyers doing the purchasing -- and a downturn in either sports-franchise valuations or card-market speculation would hit these positions with none of the staged, milestone-based downside protection a normal venture term sheet provides.
What to watch: whether more venture firms follow Thrive's dedicated permanent-capital-vehicle structure, versus Collaborative Fund's riskier choice to write illiquid sports stakes directly out of an early-stage fund meant for seed and Series A checks.
