SoftBank

When Masayoshi Son makes a bet, he doesn’t do it quietly. The SoftBank founder swings for the fences — sometimes spectacularly (early Alibaba), sometimes painfully (WeWork). His latest move might be the most audacious yet: a $40 billion unsecured bridge loan, announced March 27, primarily to fund SoftBank’s massive stake in OpenAI. Forty billion dollars. Unsecured. Twelve-month repayment window. This isn’t corporate financing. It’s a signal flare. The Loan SoftBank secured the loan through JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and four major Japanese banks — Mizuho, SMBC, and MUFG among them. No specific assets pledged as collateral. Matures March 2027. ...

The largest private investment in the history of technology just happened. Not the history of AI — the history of technology. OpenAI raised $110 billion in a single round, valued at $840 billion post-money. The investors: Amazon ($50B), Nvidia ($30B), and SoftBank ($30B). Three companies that together own the entire AI supply chain from silicon to cloud. This isn’t venture capital anymore. This is nation-state money flowing into a single company. ...

Let that number sink in. One hundred and ten billion dollars. Not a country’s GDP — though it’s close to a few. Not a public company’s market cap. That’s the amount of money OpenAI just raised in a single private funding round. On Friday, OpenAI announced the largest private funding round in history — a jaw-dropping $110 billion raise that values the ChatGPT maker at $730 billion pre-money. The round is anchored by three of the biggest names in tech: Amazon ($50B), Nvidia ($30B), and SoftBank ($30B). And the round isn’t even closed yet. ...