SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son goes all in on AI during lunch meeting with founders in India

SoftBank founder and chief Masayoshi Son

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son emphasised the importance of artificial intelligence (AI) during a meeting with portfolio company founders in New Delhi on November 27, people with direct knowledge of the matter told Moneycontrol.

Son told founders that success in the future will be determined by humans who have AI vs humans who don't have AI. Founders have to become part of that five percent who have AI to be successful, he added while speaking in a room packed with top Indian founders.

"Always amazing to meet Masayoshi Son. Such an energising discussion on AI, AGI, Energy and India. We will make the future here in India together," Bhavish Aggarwal, founder of Ola, posted on X (formerly Twitter).

The meeting was all about “AI, more AI and most AI. Masa has indicated that he will invest more and more in AI in India,” a founder who had lunch with Masa told Moneycontrol.

“Masa also said that he will invest more in India in the coming years than all previous years combined,” the founder added.

This year's attendees were not very different from the ones from last time. 

Naveen Tewari from InMobi, Ritesh Agarwal of OYO, Bhavish Aggarwal from Ola, Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Flipkart chief Kalyan Krishnamurthy were all in attendance.

Along with them, Peyush Bansal from Lenskart, OfBusiness’ Ashish Mohapatra and Ruchi Kalra, Khadim Batti from Whatfix, Krishna Depura of Mindtickle, Vikram Chopra from Cars24, Albinder Dhindsa of Blinkit, ElasticRun’s Saurabh Nigam, Supam Maheshwari of Firstcry and Unacademy's Gaurav Munjal were present for lunch with Son, or Masa as he is popularly called, sources said.

Masa with portfolio company founders in New Delhi's The Leela on November 27

This is Masa’s first trip to India in about 19 months. He had last come to New Delhi to attend OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal’s wedding in March 2023.

"The lunch happened at the Leela Palace in Delhi and lasted for about one and a half hours. The conversation was heavily focussed on AI and super AI. Masa encouraged founders to look more and more at AI ," a second founder who attended the lunch meeting told Moneycontrol.

SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son with SoftBank India team

Masa is visiting India during a crucial time for SoftBank. The Tokyo-based company earned a profit of ¥1.18 trillion ($7.7 billion) in the July-September quarter, a huge improvement compared with a net loss of ¥931 billion during the same period last year, and its highest in over two years, thanks to a strong IPO market in India. During the period, FirstCry and Ola Electric went public and delivered returns to SoftBank. The tech investor stands to earn more as more companies, such as OfBusiness and others, from its stable go public over the coming months.

Back-to-back IPOs for SoftBank in India underscores how far it has come over the past decade or so.

The company’s first set of major internet bets in India came in late 2014 and 2015 when it led and participated in massive rounds of funding in startups like Snapdeal, Ola, Oyo, Housing.com and Grofers (now Blinkit). At the time, Son had declared that SoftBank would invest $10 billion in India over the years. As things stand, he has outdone his own commitment and invested around $15 billion in Indian companies so far, of which $11 billion have been in the last six years.

Masayoshi Son had earlier said that while SoftBank’s initial internet investments in the country around 2015 were made on the basis of his instincts, it has now turned into a core belief in India.

Masa with India founders

During his current visit, Masa also has meetings scheduled with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. Son reportedly met Reliance Industries Limited chief Mukesh Ambani in Mumbai on November 26, where they discussed what lies ahead for the Japanese investor and how he plans to double down on the country's growing internet ecosystem.

Masa lunch meeting