Episode description
When Softbank unveiled its first 100 billion dollar Vision Fund in 2017, the world had never seen investment funds of such magnitude. Two years later in 2019, Vision Fund 2 was announced, and in 2021, their combined fair value was estimated to be 154 billion dollars. In this episode, we talked to two representatives from SoftBank, Anthony Doeh and Nahoko Hoshino, about what this journey has been like from their perspective. What are some of the lessons taken from the first to the second fund? Do they have different strategies from one to the other? And how does the future look?
Expect to learn:
- Is the Vision Fund II fundamentally different?
- Why is Europe more interesting now?
- How SoftBank assesses teams and founders
- What SoftBank sees as future trends
00:50 Introduction to Anthony and Nahoko
01:30 Softbank Vision Fund II: What has changed?
03:20 How has the 2nd fund been different
06:30 Does it include early stage investing?
09:15 Critical milestones for eligible companies
11:35 Why Europe now?
15:40 European founders – big companies mushroom into new companies
16:50 Intangibles in founders
20:15 Importance of founder and investor relationship
24:00 Are VC markets more competitive now?
26:30 How do you determine what’s the right path for a company to exit?
31:00 Will data and AI change everything?
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