Main Capital Lands €5.25B; Menlo Raises $3B for AI Bets

Main Capital Partners closed Main Capital IX and Main Foundation III at their respective hard caps of €4B ($4.5B) and €1.25B ($1.42B), bringing combined commitments to €5.25B and more than doubling the combined size of their predecessors. The dual fundraise was completed in under six months without a placement agent. New commitments came from sovereign wealth funds, public pension funds, and insurance companies across the US, Asia, and the Middle East; named new investors include the State Teachers' Retirement System of Ohio, the Korean Teachers' Credit Union, and AkademikerPension, with Hamilton Lane increasing its commitment from prior funds.

On the venture fundraising side, Menlo Ventures closed $3B across two funds, the largest raise in the Menlo Park-based firm's 50-year history. Menlo Ventures XVII will invest from seed to Series A and Menlo Inflection IV will deploy growth capital at Series B and beyond, both focused on AI infrastructure, frontier models, and AI-native applications. Chicago-based Valor Equity Partners is reportedly raising approximately $2.5B for Valor Equity Partners VII, its latest flagship fund, with plans to close the fund before year-end.

The New Mexico State Investment Council voted unanimously to commit $100M to Alpine Investors — $50M to Alpine Heroes I, a continuation vehicle targeting at least $1B, and $50M to a co-investment vehicle alongside it — marking the pension's first relationship with the firm. NMSIC also increased its commitment to Menlo Ventures Select I by $20M. The Plymouth County Retirement Association approved $60M across two managers following a multi-asset credit search, selecting Brigade Capital for a $40M mandate and Ares Management for a $20M mandate.

In people news, the Victorian Funds Management Corporation promoted Georgina Bishop to head of property, succeeding Pete King who is leaving VFMC after 18 years with the organization.. The Oxfordshire Pension Fund appointed Mark Smith to a newly created senior LGPS officer role, having previously served as the fund's head of pensions.

Read on for all the day’s fundraising news headlines.

Professional sports franchises have crossed from passion-driven assets into a documented institutional allocation. Across the NFL, NBA, MLB, and English Premier League, franchise values now exceed $500B across 112 teams, driven by limited supply, accelerating media rights revenue, and a growing wave of institutional capital. The Ross-Arctos Sports Franchise Index delivered 16.0% annualized returns over the trailing 10 years through Q1 2026. KKR's $1.4B acquisition of Arctos Partners in February 2026 — the firm that holds positions in 15 institutional sports franchises — is the clearest signal yet that the largest alternative asset managers now view sports as a core allocation category.

This report covers the investment case for sports as a discrete asset class, ownership structures and valuation trends across all four leagues, the 16 institutional platforms actively deploying capital, the nine funds currently in market, which LP categories are committing and why, and where the market is heading over the next decade.

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Digital assets have crossed the threshold from speculative fringe to documented institutional allocation. 

Dakota Marketplace tracks more than 4,000 institutional investors with disclosed digital asset ETF positions, spanning hedge funds, RIAs, endowments, and state pension funds, with new filers appearing every 13F cycle. The access barriers are gone, the regulatory framework is taking shape, and the largest capital pools in the world are still in the early stages of their digital asset journey.

A new Dakota Research report covers who is allocating and through which vehicles, how the manager universe is structured across VC, institutional asset managers, and hedge funds, where the regulatory calendar stands, and why tokenization is beginning to blur the line between a crypto allocation and a private markets allocation delivered on-chain.

Download the full report →