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The future of SoftBank’s second Vision Fund is in jeopardy after the first one reported record losses of $18 billion on Monday — thanks in large part to the collapsing valuations of firms like Uber and WeWork, which SoftBank has pumped billions into.
The first Vision Fund, launched by SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son in 2017, shocked the tech investment community due to its sheer size.
At $100 billion, it was several orders of magnitude larger than any other tech investment fund including those of Silicon Valley heavyweights like Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz.
More than half of the money comes from contributors like Apple, Qualcomm, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
