SoftBank Vision Fund
The SoftBank Vision Fund is a venture capital fund managed by SoftBank Investment Advisers, a subsidiary of SoftBank Group Corp., dedicated to long-term investments in transformative technology companies across sectors including artificial intelligence, automation, and frontier technologies.[1][2] Launched in May 2017, the inaugural Vision Fund 1 raised $98.6 billion in committed capital, the largest technology-focused fund ever assembled at the time, with primary backing from SoftBank Group ($28 billion), Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund ($45 billion), and additional investors such as Apple, Foxconn, and Qualcomm.[3][4] The fund's strategy emphasizes large-scale, growth-stage investments to accelerate company scaling and market dominance, deploying capital at an average rate exceeding $100 million per deal and targeting ownership stakes of 20-40 percent in portfolio firms.[4][5] Notable successes include early stakes in Nvidia, yielding multibillion-dollar returns amid the AI surge, and investments in OpenAI and IonQ, positioning the fund at the forefront of emerging tech ecosystems.[6][7] However, the fund has faced significant setbacks, particularly from overvalued bets on unproven business models; for instance, investments totaling over $10 billion in WeWork led to an estimated $8.9 billion quarterly loss in 2019 and subsequent write-downs exceeding $16 billion by 2023, prompting founder Masayoshi Son to acknowledge strategic errors in due diligence and valuation practices.[8][9] Recent performance has shown recovery, driven by AI-related gains, with Vision Fund investments contributing $4.8 billion in unrealized value increases during SoftBank's fiscal first quarter of 2025—the strongest quarterly uplift in four years—and cumulative profits reported in subsequent periods amid a pivot toward high-conviction frontier tech plays.[7][10] This trajectory underscores the fund's high-risk, high-reward approach, which has reshaped venture capital dynamics by injecting unprecedented liquidity into late-stage startups while exposing investors to volatility from speculative growth assumptions.[5][4]Formation and Funding
Inception and Masayoshi Son's Vision
The SoftBank Vision Fund was established in 2017 by SoftBank Group Corp., under the direction of its founder and CEO Masayoshi Son, as the largest technology-focused venture capital fund ever created, targeting $100 billion in committed capital to invest in disruptive startups. On May 20, 2017, the fund announced its first major close with over $93 billion in commitments, including $28 billion from SoftBank itself and $45 billion from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, marking a pivotal shift in global venture capital by enabling massive, late-stage investments in tech companies.[11][12] The fund is managed by SoftBank Investment Advisers, a wholly owned subsidiary of SoftBank Group, with a 12-year lifespan extendable by up to two years, designed to deploy capital aggressively into sectors poised for exponential growth.[13] Masayoshi Son, who founded SoftBank in 1981 as a software distributor before expanding into telecommunications and investments, conceived the Vision Fund as a mechanism to catalyze the next technological revolution, drawing from his long-term belief in the transformative power of information technology. Son's vision emphasizes accelerating advancements toward artificial super intelligence (ASI)—AI systems he predicts will exceed human intelligence by 10,000 times within a decade—positing that such intelligence will drive profound human societal progress and evolution.[14][15] He has articulated SoftBank's core mission as realizing ASI through strategic investments, viewing the Vision Fund as a tool to identify and scale companies contributing to this singularity-like outcome, informed by his prior successes in backing firms like Yahoo and Alibaba.[16] This ambitious philosophy stems from Son's first-hand experiences with technological paradigm shifts, including his early bets on broadband and mobile internet, leading him to forecast that AI-driven innovations would eclipse prior waves in scale and speed. While Son's predictions have drawn skepticism from some analysts due to the fund's subsequent performance challenges, they reflect a causal focus on intelligence amplification as the primary driver of economic and societal value creation, unencumbered by short-term market fluctuations.[17][18]Key Investors and Capital Structure
The SoftBank Vision Fund 1, launched in May 2017, targeted $100 billion in committed capital to invest in technology companies, marking the largest venture capital fund in history at the time.[11] The fund operated as a limited partnership managed by SoftBank Investment Advisers, with SoftBank Group Corp. serving as the general partner committing up to $28 billion of its own equity.[5] This commitment was partially financed through SoftBank's issuance of bonds and other debt instruments, resulting in an aggregate fund-level capital structure of approximately 40% debt and 60% equity to amplify returns for limited partners.[19] Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) provided the largest external commitment of $45 billion, representing nearly half of the fund's targeted capital and reflecting the kingdom's strategy to diversify into high-growth tech investments.[20] The Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Investment Company followed with a $15 billion pledge, aligning with its focus on long-term global technology partnerships.[21] Smaller but notable contributions came from technology firms, including $1 billion each from Apple Inc. to support innovation in emerging technologies and from Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group, alongside commitments from Qualcomm and others that filled the remaining capital to exceed $93 billion by the first major close in May 2017.[22]| Investor | Commitment Amount |
|---|---|
| Public Investment Fund (Saudi Arabia) | $45 billion[20] |
| SoftBank Group Corp. | $28 billion[5] |
| Mubadala Investment Company (UAE) | $15 billion[21] |
| Apple Inc. | $1 billion[22] |
| Other (e.g., Foxconn, Qualcomm) | Balance to $100 billion target[11] |