Japan-based phone and internet services company SoftBank has raised $250m for a corporate venturing fund to invest in growth-stage companies after commitments came from Asian technology companies Alibaba Group and MediaTek.
The SoftBank PrinceVille Investments fund (named after a Hawaii resort, pictured,) will invest in about 12 companies that could use an additional $10m to $20m each, according to Matt Krna, a principal of the fund in its New York office told newswire Bloomberg.
Krna is a new recruit from Investor Growth Capital to SoftBank Capital, which manages the PrinceVille fund, alongside Kabir Misra, managing partner at SoftBank Capital and president/CEO of SB China and India Holdings, which manages Bodhi Investments, a venture fund focused on early stage technology investments in Asia and the US, and Scarlett O’Sullivan, principal and lead for US investments for Bodhi Investments.
The PrinceVille fund will complement early-stage investments by SoftBank’s investment unit, SoftBank Capital, following a number of recent exits.
Ron Fisher, managing partner of SoftBank Capital and a member of the Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist 100, said: “SoftBank Capital now has the capacity to partner with technology companies and entrepreneurs at all stages of their life cycle.”
SoftBank Capital has had a number of recent exits, including Buddy Media acquired by Salesforce.com, Hyperpublic acquired by Groupon, Huffington Post acquired by AOL and OMGPOP acquired by Zynga.
The PrinceVille Fund’s investment focus will continue the themes of previous SoftBank Capital investments in social media, mobile applications, e-commerce, online advertising, gaming and cloud computing.
Steve Murray, partner at SoftBank Capital, added: “Our long-term ties and active working relationship with SoftBank allow us to have an unmatched ability to guide companies as they strategically approach their Asian expansion plans. SoftBank-related companies, like Softbank Mobile, Yahoo! Japan and Alibaba, are often the perfect partners for companies looking to accelerate their market presence in the region and we are the only fund investing in these sectors with deep connections to all of those companies.”
Alibaba Group, an e-commerce firm based in China, and MediaTek, a fabless semiconductor company based in Taiwan, through affiliates are limited partners and members of the advisory committee of the PrinceVille Fund and provide additional strategic value and local experience in Asia, SoftBank added. Yahoo! Japan, the largest search engine and content portal in Japan and which has Softbank as a minority investor, is also a LP in backing Softbank Capital.