Rob Lavine, News editor for Global Corporate Venturing, reviews the trends in venturing from 2018
SoftBank’s Vision expands
It is fair to say no VC investor – corporate or otherwise – has had as big a year as SoftBank Vision Fund’s 2018. The fund expanded from $97.7bn to $98.6bn over the course of the year, and though it is yet to reach that 12-figure targeted close, barely a week went by without it making a large investment of one kind or another.
The most notable of those deals included a $1.1bn investment in dynamic glass supplier View, up to $2.25bn for autonomous driving technology developer Cruise, $2bn for e-commerce platform Coupang and a $3bn commitment to workspace provider WeWork. The fund has also made large investments in the likes of Oyo, OpenDoor, Zymergen, Wag, Zume and Cohesity.
The vehicle is showing no signs of slowing down, making nine-figure investments in flexible car provider Fair and telematics technology provider Cambridge Mobile Telematics last month.…
