Former Facebook India MD joins SoftBank's $100 billion fund

BENGALURU: Facebook India's former managing director Kirthiga Reddy has joined SoftBank as the first venture partner at its $100-billion Vision Fund. Reddy, who will be based in Silicon Valley, said she was looking forward to bring her technical and business expertise - from both enterprise and consumer technology, in developed and emerging markets - to the fund team.

"I'm excited to be working closely with Deep Nishar on frontier technologies - AI, robotics, health tech, bio-engineering, semis, IoT, quantum computing, and more - that will enable the next stage of the information revolution. It's a unique moment in time to join SoftBank, learn from Deep and the talented SoftBank team and help shape the next set of transformative companies. So excited!" she wrote on professional networking site LinkedIn.

"Like in other investment firms, the venture partner role enables quick integration of new talent from non-investing backgrounds, which is a perfect fit for me," Reddy, who was also the first Facebook employee in India, added.

SoftBank said Reddy, with her deep business and technical experience, will bring a set of new perspectives and geographical insights to SoftBank Investment Advisers (SBIA).

SoftBank chief executive Masayoshi Son set up the gargantuan Vision Fund in 2016 to make investments in fast growing technology companies. Besides him, there are nine more partners including Rajeev Misra, the CEO of SoftBank Investment Advisers. Last month the company appointed Sumer Juneja from Norwest Venture Partners as its India head.