The Seoul-based newly rebranded global fund could be worth $500 million.
SoftBank Group is all set to launch a venture capital unit for early stage investments.
According to a news report by Reuters, the global fund from newly rebranded Seoul-based SoftBank Ventures Asia will be worth as much as $500 million and could launch next month, said it’s CEO JP Lee. This is a huge amount for venture funds, and indicates the appetite that Softbank has for early venture funding to encourage and invest in new startups.
Speaking with Reuters, Lee added, "It's an important signal within the SoftBank Group that SoftBank thinks early-stage investments are important and will make continued efforts on them."
This move signals the organic change that SoftBank is rapidly going through – looking beyond investing only in telecoms and transforming into a tech investing giant. In the same vein, SoftBank spoke of its plans for launching a $5 billion fund focused on Latin America.
SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son had tasked Lee to explain the reason for this massive funds set up, to which Lee quoted Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma- “small guys become big guys".
This could be the biggest small guys Softbank is planning to invest in.
