New Delhi: SoftBank Group Corp, a major investor in Indian startups such as Delhivery, Paytm, and Ola, has reported a significant drop in investment across its two primary funding vehicles in the fiscal year 2022-2023. The company invested only around USD 3.14 billion, a sharp decline from the USD 44.26 billion invested in the previous year. This decline can be attributed to the challenging market conditions faced by digital startups in 2018, as well as a change in the investment strategy of the company.
SoftBank Group Corp also reported a record loss of USD 32 billion (4.3 trillion Japanese yen) across its two Vision Funds, which was larger than the previous loss of 2.55 trillion Japanese yen. Despite this, the company’s portfolio structure delivered different results for its two investment vehicles. SoftBank Vision Fund I recorded cumulative returns of USD 101.0 billion on USD 89.6 billion in total investments, with an overall gain of USD 11.4 billion. This was due to the increase in the share prices of publicly traded portfolio businesses such as DiDi, Coupang, and DoorDash.
SoftBank’s portfolio of publicly traded holdings in India includes Paytm’s parent company, One 97 Communications, Delhivery, PolicyBazaar’s parent company PB Fintech, and Zomato. Other companies in its portfolio in India include Swiggy, Cars24, ElasticRun, MindTickle, Icertis, Eruditus, Ofbusiness, InMobi, and Juspay. The SoftBank Vision Funds registered a total loss of 5,322,265 million Yen, with third-party interests accounting for 1,127,949 million Yen.
In conclusion, SoftBank’s investment and portfolio structure for the fiscal year 2022-2023 reflects the challenges faced by digital startups in the previous year. However, the company’s investment strategy continues to evolve, and it remains a major player in the Indian startup ecosystem.
