What is Softbank?
In Tokyo sits the headquarters of Japanese massive conglomerate Softbank. It started as a software distributor, grew into a telecom giant, and now spans many industries pouring billions of dollars into likes of Alibaba, Uber, and We Work. It’s founder and CEO meets with Donald Trump and makes forms business deals with the Saudi Arabia’s royal family. And yet, it’s a company you may know little about.
Softbank is ranked number 38 on Forbes list of worlds biggest public companies. Now that’s a few slots higher than General Motors and IBM. And far ahead of Amazon, Coca-Cola and Walt Disney. It’s businesses dealings really know no limits. They include telecommunication, e-commerce, finance, technology services, semiconductor design, media and marketing, a baseball team and even a robot.
The Robot
This is an humanoid robot manufactured by Softbank, designed with the ability to read human emotions and even analyze voice tone.
The Man Behind
So who’s behind it all the FOUNDER and CEO, Masayoshi Son. He was born in a small town in Japan and moved to California at the age of 16. He graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in Economics in 1980. Son is know for his fierce business strategies and they seem to pay off. After meeting with then President — elect Donald Trump in 2016, it was announced that Don would invest $20 billion in the U. S. Tech Sector. After the announcement in the trump tower lobby, Softbank’s stock surged more than 6%, making him instantly $2 billion dollars richer. Son is now Japan’s richest man. Yet a big part of the Softbank’s success and size, may actually have less to do with Japan and more to do with China.
The History
In 2000, Softbank made its most successful investment, putting $20 million dollars into Alibaba. And 14 years later that investment turned into an estimated $60 billion dollar payday when the Chinese E-commerce giant went public. That’s almost a 300,000% gain in 14 years. With returns like that, it’s no wonder Softbanks become an investing powerhouse.
Last year, Softbank invested in more than half of top 10 biggest investments in VC-backed startups. That included ride — hailing giants, Didi Chuxings, Grab and Ola, as well as Flipcart, and those investments are coming whether companies want them or not. When Didi Chuxing and Uber said they didn’t need Softbanks money, Son threatened to invest in their rivals instead. Needless to say the companies took the cash.
The Acquisition
In 2016, Softbank Purchased European semiconductors firm, Arm Holdings, for $31 billion dollars, the biggest purchase of a European tech company — ever. Google — owner Alphabet also sold its robotics firms Boston Dynamics in 2017 for an undisclosed amount. Much of Softbank’s recent investments are a part of what’s know as the Vision Fund.
The Vision Fund
It’s the largest technology investment fund in the history.
While the $100 billion dollar fund is primarily backed by Softbank, it also includes massive investments from Apple, Qualcomm, Sharp and the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The funds has also invested billions of dollars into about 30 companies. It recently announced a $200 billion dollar power generation project in Saudi Arabia, which would be worlds biggest solar project. And it isn’t stopping there the fund wants to become the largest shareholder in 100 tech companies around the world once its done investing its money creating the biggest ecosystem of tech companies in the world.
