SoftBank Vision Fund has reported a loss of $5.52 billion (730.36 billion yen) in the December quarter, making it the second loss-making quarter for the backer of unicorns such as Ola, Flipkart, Swiggy and OYO.
In the September quarter, SoftBank Vision Fund recorded $9.75 billion in investment losses. At the group level, SoftBank has reported a net loss of about $5.9 billion in Q3, compared to $219 million in profits last year.
SoftBank said the fair value of its late stage portfolio is over $37 billion, and some of its portfolio companies such as Bytedance and Flipkart were ready to list publicly as of December 31, 2022. Of the $9.1 billion invested from the Vision Fund 2, 18 per cent of the capital has returned in the three years of the fund 2 launch, while 50 per cent has been returned from the $44.2 billion invested from SVF1.
Further, SoftBank noted that 90 per cent of its SVF 2 portfolio has over 12 months cash runway, and this percentage is 99 per cent in the case of SVF 1 portfolio. SoftBank added that it has a cautious approach to investing in the blockchain and crypto sector. The firm has written off its full $97 million investment in crypto exchange FTX. On the other hand, SoftBank remains a firm high-conviction investors in AI (artificial intelligence).
“We believe there can be three market scenarios and our financial strategies are prepared for all three, including linear early recovery (scenario 1), instability followed by recovery from H2 2023 (scenario 2) or further decline followed by recovery after 2024 (scenario 3). As an investment company, we believe it is more necessary for us to continue in the defense mode. I believe we can change our mode to offense mode anytime we wish to, as we have ample cash in the bank,” said SoftBank Chief Finanancial Officer, Yoshimitsu Goto.