The SoftBank Vision Fund has raised USD 93 billion worth of committed capital at its first major close. Investors include SoftBank Group (SBG) and the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (PIF) as well as the Mubadala Investment Company of the United Arab Emirates (Mubadala), Apple, Foxconn, Qualcomm and Sharp. The Fund is targeting a total of USD 100 billion of committed capital, with a final close within six months.
SBG announced the creation of its Vision Fund in October 2016. The fund will be SBG’s primary vehicle to realise its SoftBank 2.0 vision. The fund is looking to target meaningful, long-term investments in companies and foundational platform businesses to enable the next age of innovation. It wants minority and majority stakes in both private and public companies, from emerging technology businesses to established, multi-billion dollar companies requiring substantial growth funding. It also wants to be active across a wide range of technology sectors, including (though not limited to) the IoT, artificial intelligence, robotics, mobile applications and computing, communications infrastructure and telecoms, computational biology and other data-driven business models, cloud technologies and software, consumer internet businesses and financial technology.
The fund will have the right to acquire certain investments already bought by the SoftBank Group, including 24.99 percent of its holding in ARM, and investments in Guardant Health, Intelsat, NVIDIA, OneWeb and SoFi. SBG’s commitment to invest USD 28 billion into the fund will be partially satisfied through its contribution in-kind of its stake in ARM, a share of 24.99 percent worth US 8.2 billion. ARM will continue as a consolidated unit of SBG. There will be no change to the board, governance structure or operations of ARM as a result of the transfer.
The fund will be advised by SBG units known together as “SB Investment Advisers,” headed by CEO Rajeev Misra, and with advistors Nizar Al-Bassam and Dalinc Ariburnu of newly formed Centricus.
