SoftBank is a Japanese multinational investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo  which focuses on investment management. The Group’s flagship Vision Fund has sold off billions of US  dollars worth of its assets in recent years. This was a sign of its founder, Masayoshi Son’s shift away  from VC’s past deals and towards his interest in the fields of Artificial intelligence and Semiconductors.  Son is selling off assets from the fund’s portfolio as he prepares for various possible ways to overtake  the market of AI and chips. According to a report by BT, SoftBank’s equity capital market team has  played a major role in raising Vision Fund’s stakes with minimal market disruption. 

The reason behind this change in interest is the huge success of ARM (Advanced RISC Machine). Arm  is a leading technology provider of processor IP, and chips, offering a wide range of processors to  maintain best-in-class performance, power, and cost requirements. The chip designer’s market value  soared up to $106 billion since last year, making softbank’s 90% holding more than all of softbank.  ARM is owned 90% by SoftBank Group, it raised its revenue from almost $2.96 billion to approximately  $3.2 billion.  

Image source: Softbank group 

Softbank’s founder, Masayoshi Son was previously said to be looking to bankroll $100 billion chip  ventures in order to compete with Nvidia Corp. and provide semiconductors to power the  development of Artificial Intelligence services. SoftBank now owns less than 5% of Paytm and  SenseTime, as the vision fund has been selling down stakes in Indian startup Paytm and China’s  SenseTime Group Inc. Son is selling off these assets to prepare for possible investments in AI and  semiconductors. Since the end of 2021, SoftBank’s Vision Fund has sold about $29 billion of the shares  it owned in companies like Coupang and DoorDash 

SoftBank has been trying to sell these investments smoothly without causing too much disruption in  the market. Last week, SoftBank was in the news for leading a big funding round of $1.05 billion for a  UK company that makes self-driving technology called Wayve Technologies. Also, in 2022, a company  connected to SoftBank joined forces with another company called Symbotic Inc., which makes robots  for warehouses. They’ve been working together since then. They also have slowed down new  investments and are focusing more on AI, chips ventures. 

Conclusion: 

Masayoshi Son, The founder of SoftBank pivots towards AI and chips leading SoftBank’s Vision Fund to  sell billions in assets, signaling a move away from past VC deals. With ARM’s success, valued at $106  billion, SoftBank aims to dominate AI and chip markets. Son’s plans include investing $100 billion in AI  and chip ventures to compete with Nvidia. SoftBank is putting more money into AI and chips, as shown  by its recent investments in companies like Wayve Technologies. This shows they’re changing how they  invest. They’re also selling some of their investments in other companies, like Paytm and SenseTime,  to put more focus on AI and chips.