SoftBank sees new-found caution as secret weapon in AI arms race
SoftBank Group splashed out billions on startups at near-peak valuations without batting an eye. Now founder Masayoshi Son's tech powerhouse is relying on a new weapon as it searches for the next big thing in AI: caution.
The strategy marks a vast turnaround for a company that completely transformed the world of tech investing with its high-conviction bets on startups at an unheard of scale.
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Offering CollegeCourseWebsiteIIM KozhikodeIIMK Advanced Data Science For ManagersVisitMITMIT Technology Leadership and InnovationVisitIIT DelhiIITD Certificate Programme in Data Science & Machine LearningVisit It also highlights the lingering effect of SoftBank's «defence mode», a strategy it adopted after being hit by plummeting valuations in the aftermath of the pandemic, when higher interest rates eroded investor appetite for risk.
«We're being very prudent when we look at these opportunities out there,» Navneet Govil, the chief financial officer of Softbank's investment arm, the Vision Fund, told Reuters in an interview late on Thursday.
«We're financial investors not strategic investors.»
The Vision Fund unit made just 29 new and follow-on investments in all of 2023 out of more than 300 companies it studied.
The October-to-December quarter was the unit's most miserly since 2017, with SoftBank saying the funds made $100 million in new investments, a drop from the heady days of 2021, when they spent $20.9 billion in April-June alone.
«It's a good approach. Given
