Koki Nagahama/Getty Images SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son.
- Some of the biggest and most promising tech companies in the world including Uber, WeWork, Indian ecommerce giant Flipkart and TikTok owner ByteDance have raised billions from a single, massive investor - SoftBank's Vision Fund.
- The Vision Fund is the biggest tech investor in the world. It has $100 billion to spend from backers including Apple, Qualcomm, and controversially Saudia Arabia's sovereign wealth fund the PIF.
- The fund has so much money to spend that peer investors think SoftBank is inflating an existing tech bubble. Its connection to Saudi Arabia is also contentious given the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey last year.
- But startups still seem to be queueing up to receive the Vision Fund's money. Here's what we know about how they went about it, and what it's like to be part of the fund's portfolio.
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Some of the most valuable tech companies in the world right now might be a lot less valuable if it wasn't for a single investor - SoftBank's Vision Fund.
The $100 billion Vision Fund has poured money into TikTok parent ByteDance, ride-hailing firm Uber, and office-sharing firm WeWork. ByteDance is now the most valuable private tech startup in the world, a title also once held by Uber before it floated.
SoftBank's critics question how sustainable it is to flood fast-growing companies with hundreds of millions of dollars. That criticism looks pertinent as its portfolio firm WeWork lurches towards an IPO with a lower-than-expected valuation and as SoftBank's Uber stake goes underwater. There are additional questions about SoftBank's major backer, Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, after the appalling murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Even so, there appear to be few startups bold enough to turn down SoftBank's cash. As Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi put it last year, per a report from Vox: "Rather than having their capital cannon facing me, I'd rather have their capital cannon behind me, all right?"
Yet how startups pitch SoftBank's investors and partners in London, Asia, and the US is a bit of a mystery. Here's everything we've gleaned on what it takes to raise those millions.