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Can anyone tell me an example where Softbank has been spectacularly correct in the past few years? We all know the failures - are there any major success in th
by dannykwells 5y ago
Can anyone tell me an example where Softbank has been spectacularly correct in the past few years?
We all know the failures - are there any major success in their portfolio? Or is it all meh?
- e4e78a06 5y agoPretty much a bunch of tech-illiterate people buying the latest buzzword without due diligence. Lighting money on fire. Even the successes were bought at the all time high prices (Bytedance) or mismanaged (Arm) and brought negative returns. Take a look at these comical slides from Softbank back when they took over WeWork after it collapsed: https://news.crunchbase.com/news/the-best-slides-from-softbanks-wework-focused-earnings-report/ https://news.crunchbase.com/news/the-best-slides-from-softba...
- TaylorPhebillo 5y agoI honestly can't tell how the Softbank vision fund is doing. News articles on it report record breaking profits and losses. The two vision funds were recently-ish reported as being worth $150b, but I can't tell what that translates to in annualized returns, or how that looks relative to the NASDAQ.
- pkaye 5y agoThe CEO Masayoshi Son lost spectacularly during the dot com crash. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masayoshi_Son https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masayoshi_Son > s of October 2021, Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated Son's net worth at US$23.1 billion, making him the second richest man in Japan and 68th richest person in the world,[1] despite having the distinction of losing the most money in history (approximately $70bn during the dot com crash of 2000).[4] After that the big success came with investment in Ali Baba. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftBank_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoftBank_Group > In October 1999, SoftBank became a holding company.[21] In 2000, SoftBank made its most successful investment – $20 million to a then-fledgling Chinese Internet venture called Alibaba.[22] This investment turned into $60 billion when Alibaba went public in September 2014.[23][24]
- makeitdouble 5y agoDepends on what you mean "past few years", and also VisionFund is huge as has a finger in a lot of pies. https://visionfund.com/portfolio https://visionfund.com/portfolio If we talk news worthy stuff, ByteDance could be the biggest name on that list ?
- zhughes3 5y agoThey are the main investor in goPuff which will win the instant needs market.
- bogota 5y agoReally? You think gopuff is going to win that space? Why?
- devmunchies 5y agoThe “This Week in Startups” podcast from last week, episode 1378, interviewed the CEO. They are hiring their own drivers and building their own delivery hubs, meaning products you order are coming from their hubs, not from CVS or Walmart. They have more control over efficiency. They even acquired BevMo and are converting those into hubs.
- valzam 5y agoWasn't GoPuff in the news lately for spending tens of thousands of dollars per week on Instacart? The magical cycle of VC money...
- paxys 5y agoI'm still skeptical that anyone will win that space. The core problem (instant delivery logistics in a dense urban area) is just too expensive for the average consumer to bear. Right now every player is VC subsidized, but what happens when that money dries up?
- KerrAvon 5y agoWhy do you think it’s (eventually) too expensive? Do you think distribution is too expensive?
- paxys 5y agoNo, the labor is too expensive. Ultimately you are paying someone for a couple hours of work, plus spending on vehicle deprecation, gas, parking, storage, all to deliver someone a packet of chips.
- fastball 5y agoBasically they won big with Alibaba and everything else is... not great.
- Tanjreeve 5y agoSo probably about the same as most VC companies.
- farseer 5y agoSoftbank stake in Alibaba is worth north of $80 billion.
- paxys 5y agohttps://visionfund.com/portfolio https://visionfund.com/portfolio ByteDance, Grab, Ola, Uber, Opendoor, Slack, DoorDash, Didi, Coupang were/are all great bets. According to CrunchBase (https://news.crunchbase.com/news/softbank-vision-fund-strategy-turnaround-under-the-hood/ https://news.crunchbase.com/news/softbank-vision-fund-strate...), as of March 31, 2021 Vision Fund 1 was worth $146.5 billion from $86.2 billion in initial investment. I don't know enough about the space to judge whether that is considered good enough or not.