Japan-headquartered internet and technology conglomerate SoftBank plans to invest an additional $5bn in the Latin American Region, Bloomberg has reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The corporate formed a $5bn investment vehicle targeting the region in early 2019, and the prospective funding, which would double the allocation to $10bn, may be used to create a new SoftBank Latin America Fund or expand the size of the first, the sources said.
SoftBank also intends to expand the range of Latin America-based companies it targets to include seed and series A-stage startups as well as publicly-listed companies. Chief operating officer Marcelo Claure, who launched the first fund, will continue to lead its Latin America-based operations.
A SoftBank spokeswoman told Bloomberg various discussions are ongoing, but a final decision has yet to be made. Its Latin America fund had a net equity internal rate of return of 62% at the end of March this year, compared to a 39% IRR for SoftBank’s first Vision Fund.
The Latin America fund has backed companies such as e-commerce integration services Olist, bus booking service Buser and online delivery services platform Loggi. It most recently supplied $200m in series B funding for Brazil-based cryptocurrency exchange operator Mercado Bitcoin last week.