SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman attend an event to pitch AI for businesses in Tokyo, Japan Feb. 3, 2025.
Kim Kyung-Hoon | Reuters
SoftBank posted a $2.4 billion gain at its Vision Fund in the December quarter as a jump in the value of its OpenAI investment helped offset losses in some of its other bets.
The Japanese giant said it made a $4.2 billion gain on the value of its OpenAI investment in its fiscal third quarter, which runs to the end of December, offsetting losses stemming from the share price declines of Coupang and Chinese ride-hailing app Didi.
The company also said investment losses were impacted by a markdown in its stake in TikTok creator ByteDance.
This helped SoftBank Group book fiscal third-quarter net profit of 248.6 billion yen ($1.6 billion), which missed analyst estimates, but was a reversal of the loss seen in the same period last year.
With the Vision Fund, SoftBank has invested in AI companies it believes will be category winners, seeking to position itself at the center of the technology’s development.
OpenAI in focus
This includes a roughly $40 billion investment in ChatGPT developer OpenAI as one of its core companies. SoftBank owns approximately 11% of OpenAI.
SoftBank said it had seen a $17 billion gain on its OpenAI investment during the April to December period.
Among SoftBank’s other key bets is chip designer Arm and investments that span everything from robotics to driverless cars.
SoftBank shares have jumped this week after strong results at its telecommunications unit and a rally in the price of Arm’s stock.
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