As IPOs are delayed, SoftBank is looking into opportunities to invest in businesses where current investors wish to sell holdings through secondary sales.
With five Indian firms valued between $400 and $500 million, Japanese tech investor SoftBank has begun discussions with them about providing funding, supporting them in their next stage of growth, and assisting them in becoming unicorns, which are privately held businesses valued at $1 billion or more.
The Tokyo-based investment bank is seeking to make investments in media and business-to-consumer (B2C) businesses. According to Business Standard, which cited anonymous sources, it intends to invest $50–100 million in each of these companies, which is far less than its past rounds in Indian startups.
The publication of the research coincides with a period when entrepreneurs are struggling to raise money due to investor restraint brought on by global unrest and mounting concerns about a possible Western recession.
Because the anticipated initial public offerings (IPOs) have been benched, SoftBank is also looking into opportunities to invest in businesses where current investors wish to sell holdings through secondary sales. According to the article, SoftBank may potentially think about investing more than $100 million if such chances arise.
SoftBank invested $500 million in software as a service (SaaS) companies in India in 2022, which accounted for the majority of its investments. Once more, this was considerably less than its $3.2 billion investment in 2021. Currently, it has made around $15 billion in investments in Indian businesses. Up to $7 billion worth of investment has been withheld.
The financial daily cited experts as noting that high growth companies in which SoftBank has invested, like international travel tech company Oyo and e-commerce platform Meesho, have been drastically reducing capital burn, which could have an influence on their prior fast growth.
After the US and China, India continues to be SoftBank’s third-largest market, and the company’s top executives visited the nation in March of this year.
