If you are running a real estate company with a tech bend, now might be the time to give Masayoshi Son a call. His firm is reportedly in talks to launch another version of his $100 billion Vision Fund venture.
The Japanese billionaire behind the technology fund, which invested almost $5 billion to WeWork and Compass, could launch the new fund as early as next year, according to sources who spoke to Bloomberg.
As the founder and chief of SoftBank Group, Son pooled money from sovereign wealth funds in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi for the current Vision Fund, of which $45 billion has been distributed to companies like Uber, ARM Holdings, NVIDIA, Flipkart, OneWeb, Slack and even dog-walking app Wag.
“Vision Fund 2 will definitely come, it’s just a matter of when,” Son said at an event in Tokyo, according to the outlet. “Sometime in the near future.”
Son, who has a penchant for employing unorthodox negotiation techniques, is said to have signed a $4.4 billion deal with WeWork chief Adam Neumann in the backseat of his car. In December, Son gave $450 million to tech-fueled Compass, raising its capital to $775 million, the most of any residential brokerage in the country.
Son was also part of a $13 million funding round for research and data company Reonomy, invested $860 million into construction startup Katerra, and acquired real estate investor and lender Fortress Investment Group for $3.3 billion in cash earlier this year. In its April issue, The Real Deal explored whether Softbank’s flashy real estate plays will work. [Bloomberg] — David Jeans