SoftBank says fair value of vision funds’ India bets at $13.8 billion

SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son

In a presentation to investors, SoftBank Vision Funds said that the combined fair value of its portfolio in India was worth $13.8 billion, which is nine percent of its global investments, at the end of the December quarter.

The investor calculated ‘total fair value’ as the ‘acquisition cost plus cumulative realized and unrealized gross investment gains/(losses) as of December 31, 2023’.

Moneycontrol has seen a copy of the document.

The two vision funds have pumped in $11 billion into Indian companies since November 2018 and had already clocked exits worth $6.2 billion-$6.5 billion as of early January this year.

The investor has backed close to 30 companies in the country to date from its two vision fund investment units. Of these, more than 20 are unicorns or startups with over $1 billion 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.

SoftBank Investment Advisers Executive Managing Partner and Vision Fund CFO Navneet Govil said during an earnings call on February 8 that the mega investor is very pleased with its India portfolio that also includes companies like Paytm, Delhivery, Meesho, Flipkart and Ola, among others.

"We are very pleased with the India portfolio. Ola Electric and Firstcry filed for listing in December 2023. Oyo is also expected in the coming year or so to go public. There is no rush. All our portfolio companies will go public when the time's right...," he said.

Monetisation has been a key focus for SoftBank over the past year as it exited its positions in Zomato (that it received after its portfolio company Blinkit was acquired by the food aggregator) and PB Fintech via block deals.

While four of its portfolio firms – Zomato, PB Fintech, Paytm and Delhivery – are listed, it is now preparing to list the next set of companies from its portfolio, which will include Firstcry, Ola Electric, Swiggy and OYO.

After a funding drought of almost 18 months, another top executive at the mega technology investor told Moneycontrol earlier that it is gearing up to invest in Indian startups again.

Meanwhile, SoftBank’s management said on February 8 that its pace of investing is still in a slump despite three consecutive quarters of gains recorded in its investments.

“We remained very focussed on finding opportunities in the AI space, but the bar is very high. We are ready to deploy capital when we see the right opportunities,” said Govil.

The Japanese conglomerate's two Vision Funds registered a combined gain of $3.6 billion in the October-December period, the third consecutive quarter of being in the black, amid early signs of recovery in tech stocks.