The SoftBank strategy: a sum greater than its parts

SoftBank’s got to be one of the most intriguing and in equal measure exciting technology ventures of our times. On the face of it, we would be led to believe that Masayoshi Son, the visionary leader behind SoftBank is building a holding company with  a voracious appetite for fast growing, high potential internet properties.

But this appetite for marquee digital assets in Asia is not just fuelled by the individual value these ventures command. Once you dig deeper, you can see through a grand strategy to dominate Ecommerce in Asia. There is a definite method in this madness!

First lets take a closer look at the acquisitions and investments by SoftBank in Asia:

We can broadly categorize these acquisitions and investments into two areas: Ecommerce and Taxi Hailing

Ecommerce:

(a) Led a $627 million funding round in in Indias Top Ecommerce Portal SnapDeal .

(b) Led a $100 million funding round for Indonesia’s Tokopedia

(c) Invested $90 million in Indias Housing.com a real estate services portal

(d) The Coupang deal – South Korea’s Ecommerce leader where SoftBank acquired a $1 billion stake at a $5 billion investment.

(e) the biggest prize of all is a 32% stake in China’s E Commerce giant Alibaba

Taxi Hailing:

(a) Led $210 million funding round for Ola in India

(b) Invested $250 million in Grab Taxi, a regional South East Asia Taxi Hailing service