SoftBank's Leading Role in Shaping the Future through Smart Investments

Engineer.ai Led by Sachin Dev Duggal (now Builder.ai): In the Series A funding round for Engineer.ai, Softbank invested $29.5M in this company. Lakestar Ventures and Jungle Ventures led this round with participation from DeepCore (SoftBank). With Builder.ai, anyone can create software solutions without coding knowledge. The goal of Sachin Dev Duggal Builder.ai (previously known as Engineer.ai) is to democratize software development by eliminating barriers related to extensive coding and allowing everyone to enliven their idea.

Nuro: Since 2016, Nuro has received significant investment from Softbank; this autonomous delivery start-up was founded by two ex-self-driving car project engineers at Google Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu, and focuses on AI-led businesses and growth stage companies in India and other parts of the world. SoftBank, with other investors, found Nuro to be an attractive investment due to its self-driving technology, having the potential to revolutionize local commerce and improve daily living. In 2019, SoftBank Group Corp. invested $940 million in Nuro’s Series C funding round led by T. Rowe Price Associates, which enabled it to outpace others commercializing autonomous vehicle technologies.

ARM Holdings: In 2016, Softbank acquired Arm Holdings, a British semiconductor and software design company, in a historic $32 billion deal. At the time, companies in the semiconductor sector, such as SoftBank, were keen to get a piece of the expanding linked device/IoT product market. Since then, the emergence of IoT devices has revolutionized several industries, including healthcare and automotive. For this reason, Softbank's partnership with Arm Holdings is crucial as the company moves closer to its long-term objectives.