SoftBank fund eyes 150 large tech cos in 2 yrs

Bengaluru:

SoftBank

’s Vision Fund would house 150 large technology companies in a year or two, where some would be of $100 billion in value like Uber,

Didi

and ByteDance (which owns

TikTok

), said

Rajeev Misra

, CEO of the largest technology investment vehicle. The $100-billion fund already has 75 unicorns within two years of operations.

Misra said SoftBank will have major companies from every industry across geographies, including in India. “The Vision Fund looks like it has been there for a long time, but we started making investments in May 2017. As of today, it is the biggest platform of technology companies. It would be all interesting companies in every industry across the world,” Misra said. He added that the firm will also more than double its team of investment professionals to about 1,000.

In the annual shareholder meeting of SoftBank on Wednesday, its founder and CEO Masayoshi Son cited growth of Indian portfolio companies like Oyo, Ola and Paytm to demonstrate the Vision Fund’s bet on market leaders.

Son, talking about shareholder value and exits on Vision Fund’s investments, said last year Flipkart had the option of being acquired by Walmart and Amazon. “Through process of negotiations, we decided to go with Walmart since Flipkart management and employees were willing to work with Walmart, so that they can expect synergistic effect,” he added (see graphic). SoftBank had invested $2.5 billion in Flipkart in 2017 and sold it for $4 billion to Walmart in 2018, which now owns 77% stake in Flipkart.

According to him, this is a ‘gold rush’ of investments and SoftBank will continue to expand aggressively and back companies. Throughout his speech, Son stressed on the importance of artificial intelligence (AI) as a key theme. He said he wants to be like a ‘music conductor’ in the AI revolution, which has just begun.

Both Misra and Son’s optimism about technology startups bodes well for startups here as they have been one of the most influential investors writing large cheques. SoftBank has put more than $10 billion across Indian startups with recent investments like Delhivery,

Grofers

and

FirstCry

. At present, it is in discussions with multiple other Indian startups as well. In December last year, it appointed Sumer Juneja as its India head, signalling its intention to place more local bets.

Later in his speech, Son also said most of the investors of its $100-billion fund are keen to join the group’s next fund and that discussions will begin soon. Sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Apple are some of the prominent investors in the Vision Fund.


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