SoftBank’s Vision Fund 1 lost $544 million on its $1.6 billion investment in Paytm, which it sold off completely in the June quarter.
In November 2023, Warren Buffett sold his entire stake in Paytm, incurring a loss exceeding 850 crore rupees.
On the other hand, the fund made a $394 million profit from its $199 million investment in Policybazaar, which it has also fully exited.
The fund gained $285 million on its $397 million investment in Delhivery, where it still holds a 10.15 percent stake. It also made a $65 million profit from its full exit from Zomato after acquiring a small shareholding through the purchase of Blinkit by Zomato in 2022.
Over the past ten years, SoftBank has invested around $10.6 billion in Indian tech startups and has exited investments worth about $6-6.8 billion.
SoftBank is seeing a 106 percent gain on its $843 million investment in Ola Electric, FirstCry, and Unicommerce, which is about to go public. The company plans to sell up to $153 million worth of shares in these upcoming IPOs but will still hold shares worth up to Rs 11,011 crore after the listings. They have already sold $275 million worth of FirstCry shares but haven’t sold shares in the other two companies yet.
As SoftBank shifts its focus to artificial intelligence (AI), it is selling off older investments in e-commerce and fintech. The fund’s investments in India were valued at $13.8 billion at the end of December 2023, which is nine percent of its global investments.
