SoftBank Group will reportedly lead a group of Indian startup founders to Silicon Valley next month to study artificial intelligence technology, hoping to inject more artificial intelligence elements into its investment portfolio.
Sumer Juneja head of SoftBank Vision Fund’s investments in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India, said in an interview that the company is helping its portfolio companies to adopt AI technology and has already arranged for the founders of these companies to meet with the top companies in this field.
SoftBank plans to have up to 20 founders of Indian companies along. The firm’s Indian portfolio companies include Oyo Hotels, online car company Ola and takeaway platform Swiggy.
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SoftBank, helmed by Masayoshi Son, has always been active in the venture capital space, but it began restarting investments in the second quarter of this year after previously suspending them due to investor frustration with loss-making startups. The Japanese giant has more than $40 billion in cash and is currently raising more money by preparing for the IPO of chip design firm Arm.
“We don’t want the companies we invest in to miss the AI wave and wait until three years later to catch up.” Junija said, “Important factors we consider when investing in a new company include that it must have a best-in-class technology team and be in an industry that can utilize AI to make its business model more efficient.”
With ChatGPT catching fire all over the world, investors are now stepping up to back AI companies. Junija believes that a large number of companies in many industries, including SaaS, will become redundant if AI technology is not utilized quickly. However, the biggest challenge today is what it will take to capitalize on this technology.
“If you get in too late, you miss the opportunity. If you get in too early, you have a limited impact on revenue. Our role is to help businesses transition smoothly.” He said.
Masayoshi Son founded the Vision Fund in 2017 and has since invested more than $140 billion in startups as a way to support the development of new technologies such as artificial intelligence. But many companies, including shared office startup WeWork, have suffered plummeting valuations.
