If you think you’re taking digital transformation (DX) seriously, then you ain’t seen nothing yet. Japanese company SoftBank is planning to make investments like never before over the next five years, into something they call the “information revolution”. The cash pool, lovingly titled the “SoftBank Vision fund”, may be planning to take on the future of tech single-handedly, with a first major close in May of around $93 billion in committed capital. The remaining $7 billion needed for the fund is expected to be raised throughout the rest of 2017.
According to experts, the “Vision Fund” is something of a pet project for SoftBank CEO and Japan’s richest man, Masayoshi Son. He believes that pumping around $100 billion into new technology solutions will help him to make the world a better place – and he’s not alone. SoftBank is raising funds from all over the world, including $45 billion from the Saudi Arabia public investment fund, $15 billion from the Abu Dhabi “Mubadala” company, and various donations from Oracle, Apple, Sharp, Foxconn, and Qualcomm.
Show Us the Money!
A fund as large as this one is completely unprecedented, equalling about the total amount that all VC-backed companies received throughout the whole of 2016. In other words, this one fund adds up to the total of around 8,372 global deals.
SoftBank plans to spend the cash on start-ups, billion-dollar corporations, and more, with a minimum buy-in of around $100 million. The primary focus will be on things like the Internet of Things, robotics, and Artificial Intelligence. For instance, “Brain Corp” received funding in July to help them accomplish their self-driving robot goals. During the same month, the Vision Fund delivered a $200 million funding pool for “Plenty”, a farming company re-thinking the future of food development by growing crops vertically.
The potential for investments is everywhere, with contributions to Roivant Sciences – a company that seeks out and distributes abandoned drugs, and even “Flipkart”, an Indian eCommerce firm. According to Son, each investment is made with a focus on the “betterment of humanity”. This single company is hoping that it will be able to transform the world, one technology investment at a time.
A World-Changing Investment
If ever there was an investment pool with the potential to change the world, it has to be this one. With so much money available to dole out to companies capable of creating the technology that improves the lives of everyday people and inspires the next level of the “information revolution”, it’s almost a certainty that we’re going to see unbelievable change over the next five years.
We’ve already seen some of the amazing things that just a fraction of this spending could accomplish. As we move forward into the years of SoftBank investment, we’re sure to see some pretty incredible accomplishments. In fact, everything from the way you access healthcare, to the way you shop for products is likely to evolve in the next couple of years.
Personally, I can’t wait to see the momentum that this new investment generates. How about you?
