LatAm List – Japanese firm, Softbank, recently released rumors of their plans to launch a Latin American-focused fund led by COO Marcelo Claure. While the fund is still in early stages of development, the fund is expected to make an official announcement in the coming weeks.
This venture fund will be separate from Softbank’s massive Vision Fund, which has previously invested in Latin American companies as well. People close to the company have speculated that the new fund could be worth billions of dollars.
Softbank started investing in Latin America in 2000 through Softbank Latin America Ventures to support local Softbank companies and invest in startups. In 2017, they invested US$100M into 99; they also invested US$100M into Loggi in 2018.
Bolivian-American Marcelo Claure became Softbank’s COO last year and is considered as a potential successor for Masayoshi Son as CEO.
Read more in Bloomberg.