❯ SoftBank is reportedly seeking up to $100 billion from Gulf investors for a fund to buy companies and overhaul them with AI

Son turns to Gulf capitalAccording to Finimize, citing the Financial Times, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is in talks with Gulf investors, including in the UAE, to raise up to $100 billion. SoftBank did not comment, and Reuters said it could not independently verify the report.

Bet big early, then find partnersFinimize sums up Son’s long-running model as placing concentrated bets early and then looking for partners to scale them. SoftBank has mainly invested from its own balance sheet, sometimes with pricey debt. The new fund would manage outside backers’ money, a structure closer to a traditional private equity fund.

Buy companies, then rebuild themBy the Financial Times’ account, the Gulf-backed fund would buy companies and then modernize their operations with AI and other advanced technology. The backdrop is that SoftBank just completed a $30 billion investment tied to OpenAI’s latest funding round; Reuters reported that to help pay for it, the group sold $11.1 billion of high-yield bonds last month, the largest such corporate sale globally.

Less expensive debtIf the Gulf money comes through, SoftBank could rely less on high-interest bonds for its next round of AI-related acquisitions, easing its own refinancing pressure. If the talks fail, the pace of its expansion stays tied to conditions in the bond market. What the backers would be buying is SoftBank’s ability to pick companies and then rebuild them with AI.

▮ SIGNALAI investing has extended from backing model companies to buying traditional businesses and reworking them directly, and the capital required has moved from venture scale to buyout-fund scale.