After some more-than-disappointing IPOs with Uber, Slack, and WeWork, SoftBank faced some much-deserved criticism. What remains to be seen is whether SB can salvage any sort of value out of WeWork. And perhaps a more existential question is whether these stumbles will threaten the ability to fill out Vision Fund II. SB is clearly trying to emphasize its focus on AI technologies and that investors are still experiencing positive ROI. I can't imagine these returns are what investors anticipated.
A second Vision Fund is in the making, and SoftBank's Masayoshi Son seems determined to put to rest talk of its demise. The first Vision Fund, with about $100 billion in commitments from sovereign wealth funds and other backers, has come under intense scrutiny following the botched WeWork IPO, along with reports of troubles facing some other companies that the mammoth fund has bankrolled. The trouble arrived after SoftBank launched a second fund of similar size earlier this year, saying it expected to receive backing from several large corporations, including tech giants like Apple and Microsoft.
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