Billionaire investor Masayoshi Son said that he believed in India's bright future and the passion among young entrepreneurs. Additionally, he stated SoftBank has infused $3 billion into the country this year alone, underlying its commitment to the Indian market. He was speaking at the InFinity Forum on Friday.
According to the chief executive of the Japanese tech conglomerate Softbank, Indian "will be great" with a "bright future".
He said the group is the biggest foreign investor in India. "We provided about 10 per cent of the funding of all of the unicorns in India...I believe in the future of India. I believe in the passion of young entrepreneurs in India," he said. He appealed to young people in India that together they can make things happen and he would extend his support for the same.
SoftBank has been aggressively investing in India over the past few years, backing companies like Paytm, Ola and Delhivery.
It has also invested in Flipkart and Meesho.
Economic Times reports that Softbank had first invested in fintech platform Paytm's parent One97 Communications back in 2017. Post which the valuation of the payments firm came to $7-8 billion. It then invested about $1.4 billion in the company via primary and secondary share sales around the same time. Softbank sold shares worth Rs 1,689 crore as part of Paytm's offer for sale of Rs 10,000 crore.
In July, online food aggregator Swiggy too had raised $1.25 billion from Softbank Vision Fund II and Prosus, Accel and Wellington Management. The company's valuation stood at $5.5 billion after the fundraising. The investment was made in two separate tranches of $800 million and $450 million respectively. Softbank's investment in Swiggy was cleared only after receiving clearance from the Competition Commission of India (CCI).
