Japan-based telecommunications and internet group SoftBank has begun discussions to raise $100bn for a second Vision Fund, Bloomberg reported today, citing people familiar with the matter.
SoftBank has still not officially closed its first Vision Fund, which had secured $97.7bn from limited partners including corporates Apple, Foxconn, Sharp and Qualcomm, and sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi as well as SoftBank itself, as of November 2017.
The fund had deployed more than $35bn of capital as of February this year, investing in portfolio companies including ride hailing service Uber, co-working space provider WeWork and Flipkart, the e-commerce company it is set to exit at a profit of just over $1.5bn in a purchase by Walmart.
Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s founder and CEO, has previously mentioned that he viewed the Vision Fund as a long-term process that would involve several funds, and told a conference in Tokyo yesterday: “Vision Fund 2 will definitely come, it is just a matter of when…sometime in the near future.”
However, Son is already speaking to prospective investors for the second fund, which would be a similar size to the first while sourcing capital from a wider range of investors, the sources said. Its launch could potentially come as soon as early 2019, they added.
The news comes just after a report by the Economic Times, citing two people familiar with the development, stating that SoftBank is in discussions to further invest in India-based e-commerce platform Paytm Mall.
SoftBank provided $400m of the $445m Paytm Mall raised early last month, having been a significant investor in its old parent company, One97 Communications.
A clause in the corporate’s investment in Flipkart, which gave it a stake of about 20%, prevented it from investing more than $500m in Paytm Mall before 2020, but once Walmart closes its acquisition, it would be free of that obligation.
SoftBank, which held a 21% share of Paytm Mall after its latest funding, would be looking to supply as much as $3bn in additional cash, one source said.
The deal would however rely on SoftBank’s exit from Flipkart, which is not set in stone as the corporate is reportedly considering either holding on to some or all of its shares due to tax reasons.