TOKYO -- Japan's SoftBank Group on Friday announced the successor to its blockbuster Vision Fund, a new $108-billion vehicle with backing from banks and tech firms that it said would accelerate the "AI revolution".
SoftBank Group itself will plough $38 billion into the fund, which will also include investments from Apple, Microsoft, Foxconn, a range of Japanese banks, Standard Chartered, and the National Bank of Kazakstan.
In a statement, SoftBank Group said Vision Fund 2 would "facilitate the continued acceleration of the AI (artificial intelligence) revolution though investment in market-leading, tech-enabled growth companies".
Originally a software giant, SoftBank has increasingly become an investment firm, taking stakes in leading tech start-ups from Uber to WeWork through its first Vision Fund, which was largely backed by Saudi Arabia.
The announcement of Vision Fund 2 made no mention of Saudi Arabia among the investors, though reports ahead of the announcement suggested Riyadh was in negotiations to put money into the fund.
The Japanese firm's strong ties with the kingdom came under scrutiny after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
But SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son made clear after the murder that he would continue working with Riyadh, saying he was "deeply saddened" by Khashoggi's death but adding: "we cannot turn our backs on the Saudi people."
Saudi Arabia is believed to have put around $45 billion into the first Vision Fund, which was announced in October 2016 and has gone on to invest in some of the tech world's hottest firms, including Slack and Nvidia.
In May, Son told a press conference that the Fund was "the most important management engine" for his firm.
He said all the unicorns -- venture-backed firms worth at least $1 billion -- listed on Wall Street that his fund has invested in are "number-one firms in their own fields".
"I don't want to be number two... I have not been able to accept that ever since I was a child," said the flamboyant tycoon.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
RIYADH - The world's largest private equity fund, backed by Japan's Softbank Group and Saudi Arabia's main sovereign wealth fund, said on Saturday it had raised over $93 billion to invest in technology sectors such as artificial intelligence and robotics.
"The next stage of the Information Revolution is under way, and building the businesses that will make this possible will require unprecedented large-scale, long-term investment," the Softbank Vision Fund said in a statement.
Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, chairman of Softbank, a telecommunications and tech investment group, revealed plans for the fund last October and since then it has obtained commitments from some of the world's most deep-pocketed investors.
In addition to Softbank and Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF), the new fund's investors include Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Investment, which has committed $15 billion, Apple Inc, Qualcomm, Taiwan's Foxconn Technology and Japan's Sharp Corp.
The new fund made its announcement during the visit of President Donald Trump to Riyadh and the signing of tens of billions of dollars worth of business deals between U.S. and Saudi companies. Son was also in Riyadh on Saturday.
After meeting with Trump last December, Son pledged $50 billion of investment in the United States that would create 50,000 jobs, a promise Trump claimed was a direct result of his election win.
The fund may also serve the interests of Saudi Arabia by helping Riyadh obtain access to foreign technology. The Saudi economy has been severely damaged by low oil prices, and policymakers are trying to diversify into new industries.
The PIF signaled an interest in the tech sector last year by investing $3.5 billion in U.S. ride-hailing firm Uber. Saturday's statement did not say how much the PIF had committed to the fund, but previously it has said it would invest up to $45 billion over five years. Softbank is investing $28 billion.
The new fund said it would seek to buy minority and majority interests in both private and public companies, from emerging businesses to established, multi-billion-dollar firms. It expects to obtain preferred access to long-term investment opportunities worth $100 million or more.
Other sectors in which the fund may invest include mobile computing, communications infrastructure, computational biology, consumer internet businesses and financial technology.
The fund aims for $100 billion of committed capital and expects to complete its money-raising in six months, it added.
(Reporting by Andrew Torchia; Editing by Dale Hudson)
source: news.abs-cbn.com
