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. Pulse previously covered Thrive Capital's expanding footprint throughout 2026 in several stories, from its AI portfolio bets to this sports-ownership pivot.
- 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.
