StepStone | 2026 mid-year investment outlook: Venture capital

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[CIBC Global Asset Management]

[StepStone Group]

[2026 mid-year investment outlook: Venture capital]

[Alpine SPRING Private Venture & Growth Fund]

[Featuring J.D. Hall, Managing Director, Venture Capital and Growth Equity, StepStone Group]

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Hi, my name is J.D. Hall. I'm a managing director on the venture capital and growth equity team at StepStone Group.

So it's been an incredibly exciting 2026 so far, and frankly, we are equally excited about what's to come in the balance of the year and into 2027 and beyond. As we think about what's already occurred this year, we've had a huge amount of activity within private markets and specifically within venture capital. We've had multiple scaled rounds of financing coming together within the foundational AI space, the AI frontier lab space, as well as areas like energy, as well as areas like cybersecurity, and we've even had some scaled IPOs already occur.

We've had acquisition activity transpire as well. We had the largest acquisition in venture capital history close in the first quarter of this year. And we would certainly be remiss if we didn't mention the fact that coming ahead in 2026, we have some really, really scaled IPO activity on the horizon.

These companies are riding a wave of innovation around AI and machine learning, which is frankly unprecedented and gets us as excited as we have ever been about putting money to work on behalf of clients in this fund, because we think that there are generational companies which have been formed and there are generational companies which are to be formed going forward, that we will have the opportunity to invest in.

What's most important to us is that everything going on in the venture ecosystem right now is really underscoring our core thesis, which is that it has never been more important than now to be invested in the companies which matter, to find ways to layer into these companies, or double down, triple down, quadruple down into the companies which matter to capture the returns of this asset class and frankly, to deliver returns for clients that they expect out of private equity and more specifically, venture capital, we really feel that you need to be backing winners because the companies which are breaking out now are breaking out further and faster than we have ever seen before. And that's underscored by the simple fact that the top ten venture backed companies right now, which are still private, are worth about $3 trillion. That is more than the previous decade’s worth of exits combined. So it has never been more important to be in the companies that matter.

So what kind of companies matter right now? Historically—and if you think about the past two decades—a lot of venture capital has been focused on software and software as a service and cloud services. And those have been incredibly productive and lucrative areas to put money to work. However, with AI and machine learning creating a totally different environment around software development and software engineering, we have started to think a lot more about other areas of deployment and where we can be most effective as investors in the innovation cycle. That has really led venture capital into a different type of tech: hard tech. Areas like aerospace, areas like defense, energy transition, healthcare, semiconductors and chips.

And within those verticals there are multi multitudes of subsectors, whether it be drone technology, whether it be defense technology or low-Earth orbit manufacturing, whether it be companies that are focused on repatriation of manufacturing in North America or companies that are focused on the energy space all the way from nuclear to mining and things in between.

So we find ourselves in a true inflection point in the innovation cycle.

But the bottom line is that it is an extremely exciting opportunity to be putting capital to work. And we believe that if you use the tools in your toolkit to get exposed to the best companies, then hopefully we'll have an opportunity to ride the wave and capture some terrific returns.

[The information contained in this material are the views of StepStone Group and compiled by CIBC Global Asset Management. CIBC Global Asset Management does not undertake any obligation or responsibility to update such opinions. This video was created on 07/08/2026.

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