Which Japanese conglomerate is the world's largest venture capital investor?

SoftBank Group is the Japanese conglomerate commonly identified as the world’s largest venture-capital investor. Its reputation rests chiefly on the SoftBank Vision Fund, launched in 2017 to make unusually large investments in technology startups around the world.

The first Vision Fund was announced with roughly $100 billion in capital, including a major commitment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Its scale was far greater than that of a conventional early-stage venture fund, allowing SoftBank to lead or participate in multibillion-dollar financing rounds for companies such as Uber, WeWork, DoorDash and ByteDance.

SoftBank Group is broader than the Vision Fund: it is a Japanese investment holding company founded by Masayoshi Son in 1981, with interests spanning telecommunications, semiconductors and technology investments. The group also owns a major stake in Arm Holdings.

The wording can cause confusion because “largest” depends on the measure—fund size, annual investment, assets under management or number of deals. The precise, widely cited claim is that SoftBank’s Vision Fund is the world’s largest technology-focused venture-capital fund.