SoftBank is sitting on 106 percent gains on cumulative investment of Rs 7,085 crore in Ola Electric, FirstCry and Snapdeal-backed Unicommerce, expected to list on Dalal Street within the next two weeks, a Moneycontrol analysis of offer documents shows.
While the Japanese tech investor is offering to sell up to Rs 1,287-crore worth of shares through the three initial public offerings (IPOs), it will still be left with up to Rs 11,011 crore worth of stocks after the companies list on the market.
SoftBank has already sold FirstCry shares worth Rs 2,312 crore but has not yet offloaded any shares of the other two companies.
For the estimation of gains, the value of the shares to be held by SoftBank after the three public issues has been calculated at the upper end of the IPO price bands.
SoftBank is selling its FirstCry and Unicommerce shares at around three times the prices at which it bought them.
Early backers of Ola Electric such as Tiger Global and Matrix Partners stand to enjoy multi-bagger gains.
According to the regulatory filings, SoftBank has invested Rs 4,161 crore in Ola Electric, Rs 2,824 crore in FirstCry and Rs 100 crore in Unicommerce.
After the IPOs, the mega investor will still be left with large holdings in the three companies — 78.61 crore shares in Ola Electric worth about Rs 5,974 crore, about 10.4 crore in FirstCry worth about Rs 4,863 crore and 1.61 crore shares in Unicommerce worth Rs 174 crore.
SoftBank has invested about $10.6 billion (Rs 88,700 crore) in India’s tech startups over the past decade, and booked exits of about $6-6.8 billion (over Rs 50,000 crore) to date, sources say.
While four of its portfolio unicorns – Zomato, PB Fintech, Paytm and Delhivery – are listed, it could see five more listings this year, including Ola Electric, FirstCry, Swiggy, OYO and OfBusiness.
The investor has backed close to 30 companies in the country from its two vision fund investment units. Of these, more than 20 are unicorns or startups with $1 billion or more in valuation.
SoftBank was one of the most aggressive and active investors in 2021, which was a landmark year for India's startup ecosystem in terms of funding.
As the feted investor realigns its strategy to focus on artificial intelligence (AI), it has been exiting its mature investments in sectors like e-commerce and fintech.
In a presentation to investors earlier this year, SoftBank Vision Funds said the combined fair value of its portfolio in India was $13.8 billion (Rs 1.1 lakh crore), which is nine percent of its global investments at the end of the December quarter of 2023.
Moneycontrol has exclusively reported that the Japanese technology conglomerate is weighing investments in Indian data centre and industrial robotics firms, as it looks to step up bets on the infrastructure layer of AI. It has been evaluating companies in these sectors and may invest $75 million to $150 million per deal, sources told Moneycontrol.
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