Saudi Arabia’s state-owned Public Investment Fund (PIF) will commit $45bn in capital to the second Vision Fund to be raised by telecommunications and internet group SoftBank, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
PIF chairman Mohammed Bin Salman confirmed to Bloomberg that it will replicate the $45bn contribution it made to the first Vision Fund, which had secured $97.7bn of its $100bn target as of November 2017.
“We have a huge benefit from the first one,” Bin Salman said. “We would not put, as PIF, another $45bn if we did not see huge income in the first year with the first $45bn.”
Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s chief executive, has said he intends to launch a series of Vision Funds, each sized at $100bn. The inaugural fund has targeted nine and 10-figure investments in artificial intelligence-related companies and online consumer-focused offerings.
SoftBank was reported in May this year to have begun talks with prospective limited partners for a second fund. Its first included $25bn from SoftBank and contributions from corporates Apple, Foxconn, Sharp and Qualcomm, and Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company.
In the past month Vision Fund has backed the $800m first tranche of a $1bn round being raised by short-term accommodation provider Oyo, co-led a $400m round for online property transaction platform Compass and invested $400m in real estate marketplace Opendoor.
