SoftBank is the biggest foreign investor in India and has already invested around $14 billion here over the last 10 years, said the Japanese firm’s founder Masayoshi Son while speaking at the Infinity Forum.
Son also added that they are the provider of 10% of this year's unicorn fundings, investing $3 billion into the Indian startup ecosystem.
SoftBank has put bets in around a dozen startups including Unacademy, Flipkart, Ola electric, Meesho and Swiggy among others. While five of them were already unicorns, the investment by the venture capital has helped five more startups to achieve unicorn status. The list includes OfBusiness, Eruditus, Zeta, Meesho and Mindtickle.
A number of SoftBank-backed companies also saw a gigantic jump in their valuations.
Eruditus recorded a 4X jump in its valuation as compared to its last round in September 2020. Social commerce platform Meesho, SaaS firm MindTickle and OfBusiness saw a two-fold jump in their valuation while modern banking tech company Zeta registered a five-fold rise in its valuation as compared to their last round.