Mubadala is exploring additional investment opportunities in Softbank Vision Fund, one of the world’s largest technology funds, according to CEO Khaldoon Al Mubarak.
In an interview with CNBC, Al Mubarak said that the sovereign wealth fund was examining opportunities in the fields of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, ride-sharing and e-commerce.
The Softbank Vision Fund – which was unveiled less than a year ago – hopes to raise $100 billion by the end of 2017. Aside from Mubadala, other investors include Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Apple, Sharp, Qualcomm and Foxconn.
Al Mubarak noted that Mubadala had been following the success of Softbank and its founder, Masayoshi Son, for decades.
“When you are investing with anyone, you have to look at their performance, their record, and how they’ve done in good times and bad times,” he said. “We’ve been following their performance all the way through the early 80s, and we think that from that perspective there is a very strong track record.”
“Other aspects we consider is expertise in terms of the area, which is technology. We want to spend a lot of investment capital into that space. We needed to find the right platform, the right partner with the right track record, the right values that we share, and the right other investors within the group. We found that with the Softbank Vision Group.”
According to Al Mubarak, Mubadala has completed “more than 20 transactions” since entering into partnership with the Softbank Vision Fund, which he said were in “high quality industries.”
“We have a great relationship with Masa [Masayoshi Son] and Softbank, and we have a great relationship with the other investors, PIF and the others,” he said. “More importantly, we look at the deal flow coming in, the quality of the transactions that have been done prior to the establishment of the fund, which then got into the fund, and since the funds inception.”
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