SoftBank launches the Innovation Fund, committing $2B to invest in Latin America
7 March 2019 7:35 AM GMT
While SoftBank continues to make big bets on startups out of its $100-billion Vision Fund, it has also launched another investment vehicle to invest in tech opportunities specifically in Latin America. Today the group announced the SoftBank Innovation Fund, which is starting out with a $2 billion commitment to invest in tech startups in Central [?]
- While SoftBank continues to make big bets on startups out of its $100-billion Vision Fund, it has also launched another investment vehicle to invest in tech opportunities specifically in Latin America.
- Alongside this, it’s establishing a group called the SoftBank Latin America Local Hub, which will partner with companies that are already in SoftBank’s investment portfolio to help them break into the region.
- As a developing market with a growing middle class (more than 50 million people in the region have entered the middle class generating increased disposable income, SoftBank said), it is one of the fastest-growing regions for tech products and services.
- Latin America presents significant opportunities for SoftBank Group, and the Vision Fund will have the ability to co-invest alongside the innovation Fund,” said Rajeev Misra, CEO of SoftBank Investment Advisers, who runs the Vision Fund.
- Not only does it help diversify by focusing on another (rapidly growing) region, but it gives the group one more way to sweeten the deal to invest in any fast-growing startup, by offering a helping hand in their efforts to expand to other regions by way of their network of contacts and existing services.
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