SoftBank Group
SoftBank Group Corp. is a Japanese multinational investment holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, that focuses on investment management. The group primarily invests in companies operating in technology that offer goods and services to customers in a multitude of markets and industries ranging from the internet to automation. With over $100 billion in capital at its onset, SoftBank's Vision Fund is the world's largest technology-focused venture capital fund. Fund investors included sovereign wealth funds from countries in the Middle East.
The company is known for the leadership of its controversial founder and largest shareholder Masayoshi Son. Its investee companies, subsidiaries and divisions, including several unprofitable unicorns, operate in robotics, artificial intelligence, software, logistics, transportation, biotechnology, robotic process automation, proptech, real estate, hospitality, broadband, fixed-line telecommunications, e-commerce, information technology, finance, media and marketing, and other areas. Among its most internationally recognizable current stockholdings are stakes in Arm, Alibaba, OYO Rooms, WeWork and Deutsche Telekom. SoftBank Corporation, its spun-out affiliate and former flagship business, is the third-largest wireless carrier in Japan, with 45.621 million subscribers as of March 2021.
SoftBank was ranked in the 2025 Forbes Global 2000 list as the 130th largest public company in the world.
The logo of SoftBank is based on the flag of the Kaientai, a naval trading company founded in 1865, near the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, by Sakamoto Ryōma.
Although SoftBank does not affiliate itself to any traditional keiretsu, it has close ties with Mizuho Financial Group, its primary lender.
On January 21, 2025, it was announced that Softbank, along with OpenAI, MGX, and Oracle, would launch what was announced to be an artificial intelligence infrastructure system in conjunction with the U.S. government, titled Stargate. The project is estimated to cost $500 billion. U.S. president Donald Trump stated that the infrastructure was developed to have American-made AI in the United States. The project will be funded over the course of the next four years.
History
Founding and early years
SoftBank was founded in September 1981 as SOFTBANK Corp by then-24-year-old Masayoshi Son, initially as a software distributor. The company entered the publishing business in May 1982 with the launches of the Oh! PC and Oh! MZ magazines, about NEC and Sharp computers respectively. Oh!PC had a circulation of 140,000 copies by 1989. It would go on to become Japan's largest publisher of computer and technology magazines and trade shows.In 1994, the company went public, valued at $3 billion. In September 1995, SoftBank agreed to purchase US-based Ziff Davis publishing for $2.1 billion.
1995–2009 expansion
In the 1990s, Son made large investments in Internet services and the so-called new economy in general. SoftBank bought COMDEX from The Interface Group on 1 April 1995 for $800 million and ZDI on 29 February 1996. SoftBank sold COMDEX to Key3Media, a spin-off of Ziff Davis, in 2001. In 1996, SoftBank formed a joint venture with American internet company Yahoo!, creating Yahoo! Japan, which would become a dominant site in the country.In another highly publicized investment, SoftBank bought 80% of memory manufacturer Kingston Technology in 1996. When the owners-founders announced plans to distribute $100,000,000 of the $1.5B windfall to Kingston employees, it created a very high-profile media stir that lasted well through the 1996 Christmas season; it was on all US networks, as well as international media. A few years later, in 1999, after the market for memory softened substantially, SoftBank sold the company back at a loss to the original owners for about a third of the original price.
In October 1999, SoftBank became a holding company. In 2000, SoftBank made its most successful investment$20 million to a then-fledgling Chinese Internet venture called Alibaba. This investment turned into $60 billion when Alibaba went public in September 2014.
In February 2000, SoftBank Ventures Asia was founded under the leadership of Masayoshi Son to focus on investment in Korean-based Internet companies.File:SoftBank Hankyu-Ibaraki.JPG|thumb|250px|right|SoftBank store in Ibaraki, Osaka, Japan
On 28 January 2005, SoftBank became the owner of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, a Nippon Professional Baseball team. On 17 March 2006, SoftBank announced its agreement to buy Vodafone Japan, giving it a stake in Japan's $78 billion mobile markets. In April 2006, SoftBank purchased a 23% stake in Betfair, an Internet betting exchange. In August 2006, SoftBank sold all its shares of SBI Group to a subsidiary of SBI's holding company, making SBI independent. On 1 October 2006, Vodafone Japan changed its corporate name and service brand name to "SoftBank Mobile" and "SoftBank" respectively.
On 28 January 2008, it was announced that SoftBank and Tiffany & Co. collaborated in making a limited 10 model-only phone. This phone contains more than 400 platinum diamonds, totaling more than 20 carats. The cost is said to be more than 100,000,000 yen.
2010–2016 acquisitions
On 3 February 2010, SoftBank acquired 13.7% in Ustream. On 1 October 2010, Ayumi Hamasaki became the commercial spokesperson.On 3 October 2012, the takeover of competitor eAccess was announced. On 1 July 2013, SoftBank announced that Willcom was a wholly owned subsidiary, after the termination of rehabilitation proceedings. eAccess was merged with Willcom, which resulted in a new subsidiary and brand from Yahoo! Japan, Ymobile Corporation.
On 15 October 2012, SoftBank announced plans to take control of American Sprint Nextel by purchasing a 70% stake for $20 billion. On 6 July 2013, the United States Federal Communications Commission approved SoftBank's acquisition for $22.2 billion for a 78% ownership interest in Sprint. On 6 August 2013, SoftBank bought 2% more shares of Sprint Corporation, increasing its ownership stake to 80%.
File:Softbank in Sendai & the decorations of Sendai Star Festival.JPG|thumb|SoftBank store in Sendai, with decorations for the Tanabata
In October 2013, SoftBank acquired a 51% stake in Supercell for a reported $2.1 billion. Later on 25 October 2014, they invested $210 million in OlaCabs, $627 million in Snapdeal with a 30% stake in the company on 28 October 2014, and a $100 million investment in Housing.com for a 30% stake in November 2014.
In 2013, the company bought a controlling stake in French company Aldebaran Robotics, which was rebranded SoftBank Robotics. In 2014, teams from both companies co-designed Pepper, a humanoid robot. In 2015, SoftBank increased its stake to 95%.
On 28 September 2014, it was reported that SoftBank was in talks to acquire animated film studio DreamWorks Animation for $3.4 billion, following the box office underperformances of Rise of the Guardians, Turbo and Mr. Peabody & Sherman. The following day, it was reported that SoftBank withdrew its offer. The studio would later go on to be acquired by Comcast subsidiary NBCUniversal in 2016.
In 2015, SoftBank acquired DramaFever. In May 2015, Masayoshi Son said he would appoint Nikesh Arora, a former Google executive, as Representative Director and President of SoftBank. Arora had been heading SoftBank's investment arm. On 1 June 2015, SoftBank acquired an additional 22.7% stake in Supercell, increasing its total stake to 73.2% and becoming the sole external shareholder of the company. In June 2015, SoftBank announced it would invest US$1 billion in the Korean e-commerce website Coupang as part of its overseas expansion plans.
In July 2015, SoftBank announced the renaming of the company from SoftBank Corp to SoftBank Group Corp. Meanwhile, SoftBank Mobile was renamed to SoftBank Corp, the now-former name of the company as a whole. On 16 February 2016, SoftBank announced they would repurchase a record 14.2% of shares, valued at $4.4bn, to boost investor confidence. On 31 March 2016, they announced they would sell shares worth $7.9 billion of their stake in Alibaba Group. On 21 June 2016, SoftBank sold its 84% stake in Supercell for a reported US$7.3 billion to Tencent. On 3 June 2016, Softbank agreed to sell most of its stake in GungHo Online Entertainment for about $685 million, ending Softbank's majority ownership. The offer was completed by 22 June.
In June 2016, Nikesh Arora stepped down amidst pressure from investors. Board member Ron Fisher and Baer Capital Partners founder Alok Sama undertook Arora's overseas investment duties. One month later, Son announced the company's largest deal ever to buy British chip designer Arm Holdings for more than US$32 billion. This acquisition was completed on 5 September 2016.
On 6 December 2016, after meeting with the then United States President-elect Donald Trump, chief executive Masayoshi Son announced SoftBank would be investing US$50 billion in the United States toward businesses creating 50,000 new jobs.
2017–2018
On 30 January 2017, the Wall Street Journal wrote that SoftBank Group was "weighing an investment of well over $1 billion in shared-office space company WeWork, in what could be among the first deals from its new $100 billion technology fund." On 20 March, SoftBank bought a $300m stake in WeWork. On 14 February 2017, SoftBank Group agreed to buy Fortress Investment Group LLC for $3.3 billion. In February 2017, it was announced that Social Finance Inc. was close to raising $500 million from an investor group led by Silver Lake, including Softbank. On 28 March 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported that SoftBank Group Corporation had approached Didi Chuxing Technology Co. about investing $6 billion to help the ride-hailing firm expand in self-driving car technologies, with the bulk of the money to come from SoftBank's planned $100 billion Vision Fund.On 18 May 2017, it was reported that Softbank had completed its single largest investment in India to date, investing $1.4 billion in Paytm. At the time, Softbank was also working on a takeover of Snapdeal by Flipkart. On 10 August 2017, Softbank invested $2.5 billion in Flipkart.
On 27 May 2017, Softbank and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the kingdom's main sovereign wealth fund, partnered to create the Softbank Vision Fund, the world's largest private equity fund with a capital of $93 billion. Softbank Group contributed $28 billion to the investment fund, of which $8.2 billion came from the sale of approximately 25% of British multinational Arm Holdings shares. Saudi Arabia is the principal investor in the fund, its Public Investment Fund agreed to inject $45 billion into the Vision Fund over 5 years, becoming its largest investor. Other investors include Apple, Qualcomm, Arm, Foxconn, Sharp, Larry Ellison and Mubadala. The latter agreed to invest $15 billion dollars in the fund, targeting artificial intelligence, communications infrastructure, financial technology, consumer internet, mobile computing and robotics. Through Softbank Vision Fund, CEO Masayoshi Son explained his intent to invest in all companies developing technologies emphasizing global artificial intelligence, including sectors such as finance or transportation. In July 2019, SoftBank announced creating of a "Vision Fund 2", excluding participation from the Saudi Arabia government and including investors Apple, Foxconn, Microsoft and others. The fund is reported to focus on AI-based technology and invest approximately $108 billion, including $38 billion of its own funds. In February 2020, however, a report from Wall Street Journal stated the fund would only up with less than half of that capital.
On 8 June 2017, Alphabet Inc. announced the sale of Boston Dynamics to SoftBank Group for an undisclosed sum. On 25 August 2017, SoftBank finalized a $4.4 billion investment in WeWork. On 24 October 2017, Son announced the group would collaborate with Saudi Arabia to develop Neom, the new high-tech business and industrial city of the Saudi Kingdom. On 14 November 2017, Softbank agreed to invest $10 billion into Uber. On 29 December 2017, it was reported that a SoftBank-led consortium had invested $9 billion into Uber. The deal, to close in January 2018, would leave SoftBank as Uber's biggest shareholder, with a 15 percent stake. The deal was secured after Uber shareholders voted to "sell their shares to the Japanese conglomerate at a discounted price." Beyond SoftBank, consortium members included Dragoneer, Tencent, TPG and Sequoia.
On 14 January 2018, Softbank's Vision Fund announced to invest $560 million in the German used-car sales portal Auto1. On 1 March 2018, Softbank's Vision Fund led a $535 million investment in DoorDash. In May 2018, CEO Masayoshi Son revealed during an earnings presentation that Walmart had reached a deal to buy Flipkart. On 27 September 2018, Softbank announced the investment of $400 Million in Home-Selling Startup Opendoor.
In September 2018, Saudi government officials announced that a planned $200 billion project with SoftBank Group to build the world's biggest solar-power-generation project would be put on hold. In November 2018, SoftBank announced it would make an IPO of SoftBank Corp., the telecommunications operator, with the cost of share of $13.22. The offer of the shares was going to last for a month. Regarding the number of shares, the total value of SoftBank Corp. will reach $21.15 billion, which would be the second-largest IPO ever made.
In December 2018, SoftBank invested in ParkJockey. The startup attempts to monetize parking lots. After the investment round, general valuation of the ParkJockey reached $1 billion.
In December 2018, SoftBank announced its intention to invest $1 billion on ride-hailing startup Grab. Some sources said that the total amount of investment could reach $1.5 billion.