SoftBank Group Corp., a Japanese multinational corporation, was founded in 1981 by its CEO Masayoshi Son, Japan’s richest man, and is Japan’s third largest public company. Its portfolio of investments include interests in the telecommunications, ecommerce, internet technology services, finance, media and semiconductor businesses. Two of its most prominent holdings are the British chip designer ARM Holdings and an 80% interest in Sprint. It recently made a $4 billion investment in Nvidia and is Nvidia’s fourth largest shareholder.
In 2016, Softbank announced the formation of the Vision Fund, stating that it intended to raise $100 billion for technology investments. The company stated that the fund would particularly focus on the field of artificial intelligence. In May 2017, the fund closed its first round of $93 billion. More than half the money - $60 billion - was raised in the Middle East: $45 billion from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and $15 billion from Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Investment Company. Other investors include Apple, Sharp, Foxconn, Oracle and Qualcomm.
Softbank's founder and CEO, Masayoshi Son, Japan's riches man, is a futurist who has predicted the singularity, the moment in time when machines will become smarter than humans and technology will progress exponentially. Son has predicted that will occur in 2047.
Company website: softbank.jp
Investor relations: softbank.jp
Financial statements and filings: softbank.jp
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