Softbank opens yet another investment fund

Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son has continued his quest to prove he has been a man in the wrong career for the majority of his life with the launch of another investment fund.

The Growth Acceleration Fund has completed its first closing with committed capital of $269 million, somewhat short of the $100 billion raised during the first venture, though it will offer plenty of opportunity to explore new opportunities.

Having launched the Softbank Vision Fund and the Delta Fund, this latest attempt will look to target start-up businesses globally, though the primary focus of the fund will be the Asia markets. Softbank Group will be the main and controlling partner of the fund, contributing 52% of the capital, while other Softbank subsidiaries will also contribute as well as institutional investors such as Korea National Pension Service.

This is of course not the first fund which has been launched by the Softbank business, though it is another step-forward for Son, who seems to have the goal of being the most influential person in the technology industry.

The first investment body, the Softbank Vision Fund, was launched in 2017 and now has $91.7 billion in committed capital from the likes of the Mubadala Investment Company, Apple and Foxconn. With this capital, Son has made some heavy bets in the technology space including Nvidia, Arm, Slack and WeWork.

The more humble fund, the Delta Fund, is headquartered in Jersey and currently has $6 billion in contributing capital. The focus of this fund is also on the technology industry, although Softbank is less forth-coming with the names of its investments. So far, the Delta Fund has directed investment towards ‘VR/AR development tools’, a ‘geographical location platform’ and a ‘GPU developer’.

Although investment management is somewhat outside of the realms of Son’s experience to date, it seems he has a knack to running funds. In the financial year ending March 31, the two funds added 1.26 trillion yen in profits to the Softbank accounts. With such profits being realised, you can see why Son is keen to double-down and explore further.