Oracle founder Larry Ellison will join Apple, Qualcomm and Foxconn in backing SoftBank’s record-setting technology fund, allowing the Japanese telecoms group to hit its $100 billion goal weeks ahead of schedule, the Financial Times reports.
Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Japan earlier this year.
According to the report, the Saudi-backed fund may be oversubscribed by the time it closes. Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund is also in talks to invest.The fund will remain open to additional investment until the end of January as demand from both large companies and sovereign funds remained strong.
Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has agreed to invest up to $45b of the Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund into the Softbank-managed fund.
The Vision Fund will be headed by Rajeev Misra, a former debt-trader at Deutsche Bank and UBS. He joined SoftBank at the end of 2014 as head of strategic finance.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple separately said it plans to invest $1 billion in the Japanese telecom giant’s fund. “We believe their new fund will speed the development of technologies which may be strategically important to Apple,” said Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet.
