SoftBank seems like it’s everywhere in tech. That’s because its Vision Fund — an investment fund backed by sovereign nations Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as well as tech giants including Apple, Qualcomm and Sharp — has a lot of money to spend. Having raised $93 billion so far, it’s the largest technology investment fund ever.
SoftBank’s Vision Fund is the biggest technology investment portfolio ever. This is where its $93 billion has gone so far.
Uber would be its biggest deal yet.
Koki Nagahama/Getty Images
Rani Molla was a senior correspondent at Vox and has been focusing her reporting on the future of work. She has covered business and technology for more than a decade — often in charts — including at Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal.
Slack announced yesterday that it was receiving $250 million in a funding round led by the Japanese tech goliath’s Vision Fund. The fund has already extended money to WeWork, OYO and Fanatics. Uber, the biggest startup in the U.S., could receive as much as $10 billion from the fund, making the ride-hailing company Vision Fund’s biggest beneficiary yet.
Here’s what we know so far about the value of investments and funding rounds led by SoftBank, according to its announcements and public disclosures.
In the case of funding rounds, the Vision Fund isn’t on the hook for the entire amount but rather a sizable portion. Some of the deals (OneWeb, SoFi, Improbable, Nauto, ARM and OSIsoft) are expected to be offered to, but are not currently part of the Vision Fund. Final deal values have not been disclosed.
And this is just the beginning. The Vision Fund hopes to raise a total of $100 billion that it will invest for up to five years after its final closing. Spending that much money will require massive investments — about $20 billion worth per year on average.
SoftBank is also investing plenty in technology outside of the Vision Fund, including investments in Uber competitor Didi Chuxing.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
