Every year, we survey our investor network. Not to confirm what we already think, but to understand what is actually driving capital allocation decisions across the sophisticated investor community.
This year, the results were striking. Not because they were surprising, but because of how precisely they align with the macro research now emerging from some of the world’s most respected innovation analysts.
Here is what the data is telling us about 2026.
The Survey: Where Investors Are Deploying
We asked our network one direct question: Which sectors are you planning to actively deploy into in 2026?
Investors responded, and now we are sharing those insights. The top sectors, by percentage of respondents, were:
Technology in general (38.6%) led the field, followed closely by Deep Tech, including AI, Robotics, Quantum, and Space (36.6%). Private Equity in established, cash-flow-positive businesses (34.7%) ranked third, which is notable because it shows that investors are not chasing innovation at the expense of fundamentals.
HealthTech and MedTech (31.7%) and Renewables, Energy, and Sustainability (31.7%) tied for fourth. Life Sciences and BioTech (30.7%) followed closely behind, rounding out a clear cluster of sectors in which more than three in ten investors plan to deploy capital.
Private Credit and Yield (26.7%) and FinTech (26.7%) also showed strong interest.
What is significant here is not any single sector. It is the breadth. Investors are not concentrating on one thesis. They are building portfolios across multiple innovation verticals, as well as Property and Private Credit.
The Macro Validation: ARK’s Big Ideas 2026
The timing of our survey coincided with a significant piece of research.
In January 2026, ARK Invest released their 10th annual Big Ideas report. The core thesis is that five major innovation platforms are no longer evolving in isolation. They are converging at an accelerating speed.
Those five platforms are artificial intelligence, robotics, energy storage, public blockchains, and multi-omics technology.
ARK’s projection is bold but data-driven. They expect this convergence to push real GDP growth to 7.3% by the end of this decade. For context, the International Monetary Fund’s current forecast sits at 3.1%. That is not a marginal difference. It represents a fundamentally different economic trajectory.
As ARK’s Chief Futurist Brett Winton put it: “By filtering out short-term distractions and focusing on cost curves, adoption dynamics, and technological convergence, we aim to understand how the future is being built, not just how it is being priced.”
The numbers behind this are worth understanding. ARK’s research indicates that capital investment in disruptive innovation platforms alone could contribute 1.9 percentage points to annualised real GDP growth during this decade. AI training costs are declining 75% per year. AI inference costs are dropping up to 99% per year, according to some benchmarks. These are not incremental improvements. They are step-function changes that compound across every sector they touch.
The Convergence Map: Where Survey Data Meets Macro Research
Here is where it gets interesting.
Map our investor survey results against ARK’s five converging platforms, and the alignment is almost exact.
AI and Robotics maps directly to the 36.6% of our investors targeting Deep Tech and the 38.6% focused on technology broadly. Energy Storage connects to the 31.7% deploying into Renewables and Energy. Multi-omics underpins the 31.7% interested in HealthTech and the 30.7% focused on Life Sciences. Public Blockchains aligns with the 26.7% targeting Fintech.
The fifth platform, robotics, cuts across multiple categories. It is showing up in manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, and agriculture. It is the connective tissue between what were once distinct investment verticals.
This is not a coincidence. We are seeing a real-time alignment between where sophisticated investors are directing capital and where the deepest structural economic shifts are occurring.
The investors who responded to our survey are not reading ARK reports and following a trend. They are making independent capital allocation decisions that happen to converge on the same thesis. That kind of independent validation is powerful.
What Investors Actually Want: The Trust Markers and Frustrations
The survey went deeper than sector preferences.
When we asked investors which factors most influence their decision to pursue a direct company opportunity, the answers were clear. Management track record (75.3%) dominated, followed by commercial traction (56.8%) and competitive moat (55.6%). Path to liquidity came in at 46.9%.
For fund manager evaluation, track record and performance (72.7%) and investment team pedigree (63.6%) led the field, with risk management framework (46.8%) and proprietary deal flow (41.6%) following.
The message from investors is consistent: show us experienced teams, proven traction, and clear competitive advantages. The thesis matters, but execution matters more.
On the frustration side, the data was equally revealing. The number one frustration in private market investing today is the lack of liquidity and exit options (50.7%). Second was too much noise, not enough signal (44.9%). Third was the inability to find deals matching a specific thesis (34.8%).
These are not new complaints. But they are intensifying. As more capital flows into private markets and more companies seek funding, the signal-to-noise problem compounds. Investors need better curation, better matching, and better ongoing engagement with the companies they back.
The Stage Preferences: A Full-Spectrum Opportunity Set
One of the most useful data points from the survey relates to the investment stage.
47.5% of investors are targeting Series A and B opportunities with proven traction and validated technology. 39.4% are focused on Seed and Pre-Revenue, accepting higher risk for higher potential returns. 38.4% want Pre-IPO and Late Stage with liquidity windows inside 24 months. And 35.4% are interested in Private Equity and established business buyouts.
The spread across stages tells us something important. This is not a market dominated by one investment style. Sophisticated investors are building portfolios that span the risk-return spectrum, from early-conviction bets to cash-flow-positive established businesses.
The preferred deal structure reinforces this. Priced equity rounds (63.5%) remain the dominant preference, but convertible notes (36.5%) and private credit with equity upside (32.9%) show that hybrid structures are gaining meaningful traction.
What This Means for Emergence 2026
We built the Emergence 2026 programme around a specific thesis: that the convergence of platform technologies is creating the most significant wealth creation opportunity in a generation.
The investor survey data validates that thesis from the bottom up. The ARK research validates it from the top down.
Every sector that investors identified as a priority for 2026 deployment is represented on stage at Emergence. The Life Sciences and MedTech Investor Day on February 18, in partnership with MTPConnect, addresses the 31.7% focused on HealthTech and the 30.7% targeting Life Sciences directly. The main conference on February 19 and 20 covers AI, Private Equity, Private Credit, Digital Assets, FinTech, Renewables, and the broader convergence of technology platforms.
The companies presenting at Emergence were selected because they sit at the intersection of investor demand and technological acceleration. That is not marketing language. It is what the data shows.
Over 1,250 investors have registered for Emergence 2026 at the Four Seasons in Sydney. The conference runs from February 18 to 20.
If the sectors driving capital flows in 2026 are relevant to your portfolio, this is where those conversations are happening.
Emergence 2026: Convergence and Abundance takes place February 18-20, 2026, at the Four Seasons Hotel, Sydney. The conference brings together up to 1,000 investors, 60+ presenting companies, and 50+ keynote speakers across the full investment spectrum. For more information or to register, visit wholesaleinvestor.com.au/emergence.
