Good time to bet on Asian entrepreneurs: Softbank's Arora

With little market risk, it is good time for raising money, says Nikesh Arora, President and CEO of Softbank.Speaking to CNBC, he says the number of companies that the bank can invest in is between half a million to a million companies. “So from our perspective, becoming an investor in the market is tough,” he says, adding, “We've decided to find the best entrepreneurs who are breaking out from the trajectory from their plan, go invest in them, take 25-30 percent stake, and support them for the rest of their lives.”He believes that there are opportunities in China, India and Silicon Valley, but of different natures. “Asia is being woken up, interesting companies in HK, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea as well as India, so you are seeing hope in entrepreneurs all over the place,” he says.Q: We have heard about the strategy shift in Softbank- instead of making small bets, bigger investments into mature businesses- can you explain the rationale behind this? A: I guess if you back up a little bit, you look at where the market is today. The market is in a very good place. It's the best time to be an entrepreneur. Capital is aplenty, there are lots of people looking to invest in companies, the market is pricing very low risk, so you have huge amount of unicorns or deck acorns out there where people are giving them a lot of money expecting management to execute and execution risk is even priced to zero. So, in this market, it's a great time to be out there, raising money. At the same time, the universe of companies that you can invest in is tremendous. It's probably between half a million to a million companies out there looking for funding all around the world. So from our perspective, becoming an investor in the market is tough. We've decided our right approach is for us to find the best entrepreneurs without track record that they are breaking out from the trajectory from their plan, go invest in them, take reasonable stake, 25-30 percent, and support them for the rest of their lives. That's our plan. Q: We got a chance to speak to Snapdeal earlier, talking about a potential IPO next year. You have also done a deal w/ Korea & Indonesia. Where are you seeing opportunities? A: It's fair to say that opportunities are everywhere- China, India, there's Silicon Valley. The nature of opportunities is obviously different. In silicon valley, there is a phase where we've seen clearly there is a huge amount of success. In technology companies, there are all sorts of new companies coming out of Silicon Valley, all sorts of new innovations. We're seeing in China there is a sort of factor of Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba- all creating equal systems that are very vibrant around themselves, and generally in the Chinese market.We are seeing Asia being woken up, interesting companies in HK, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea as well as India, so you are seeing hope in entrepreneurs all over the place. It's fair to say that the type of companies you see in different markets are different, so, you are seeing a lot of core technology innovations in silicon valley which will be the next phase, you see a lot of enterprise companies, you're continuing to see a huge focus in consumer