NEW DELHI: Rajeev Misra, CEO at Softbank Investment Advisers, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan’s Softbank Group which manages the conglomerate’s twin Vision Funds, is stepping back from the executive function of Vision Fund 2, as he is expected to launch a new fund along with Saudi investors.
The Softbank Vision Funds comprises two funds—Vision Fund 1 ($100 billion) and Vision Fund 2 ($55 billion)—that were created to invest in technology startups. While Misra will remain head of Vision Fund 1, he will be relinquishing the top role to his boss Masayoshi Son, founder of Softbank, for the second fund, said sources. Misra will transition to the role of vice-chairman for the $55 billion fund.
Softbank, which has backed several new-age companies in India including Ola, Oyo, Flipkart, Swiggy and Meesho invested around $3 billion last year with Misra adding that the total investments could jump to $5-10 billion in 2022. This, however, seems unlikely now.
A Softbank spokesperson did not comment on this story. The development, however, comes at a time when Softbank has put a squeeze on large bets in India given the economic jitters rippling through the industry brought about in part by the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war and global macroeconomic factors.
A former Deutsche Bank veteran who joined Softbank in 2014, 60-year-old Misra played an instrumental role behind the Tokyo-headquartered conglomerate making huge investments in startups that sometimes led to their bloated valuations, said industry watchers.
In its first year, the $100-billion Vision Fund 1, created jointly with other investors including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Government of Abu Dhabi and Apple, invested around $65 billion in startups.
Having placed large bets on several companies including Uber and WeWork, some of these investments came back later to haunt the conglomerate as valuations plummeted. In 2019, for instance, Softbank wrote down around $9 billion in WeWork out of the $10 billion it had invested in the remote working startup over the previous years.
While Mishra is expected to take along top executives from Softbank for the new fund, the move mirrors the general mood with the aggressive Japanese investor reporting a record loss of $26 billion at its Vision Fund in May forcing Son to concede that the funds will invest half or even a quarter of what it did last year.
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