And since it opened its doors in 2015, the unicorn has grown rapidly through a series of acquisitions, reaching a staff of 8,000 globally and doubling down on cutting-edge forms of construction, including prefabrication and buildings made of engineered wood.
The companyās meteoric rise, however, hasnāt been without growing pains.
In its four years, Katerra, which is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, has already had three CEOs and is now on its third chief financial officer. And according to a story late last month on the news site the Information, the company has pulled out of āat least half a dozen apartment and hotel projects in the U.S.ā
SoftBank is becoming uncool as a VC. Just comes across reckless.
The company, run by eccentric Japanese-Korean billionaire Masayoshi Son, has spent billions on stakes in high-risk, loss-making technology firms such as Uber.
It bought British iPhone chip designer Arm Holdings in 2016 for Ā£24 billion and has since amassed stakes in London-based supply chain finance firm Greensill, video gaming firm Improbable, small business bank Oaknorth, and satellite company OneWeb.
Things are going from bad to worse at SoftBank. Since January 2019, Vision Fund firms have laid off over 10,700 employees ā more than 2x the workforce of Twitter.
Softbank just invested $440 million in challenger OakNorth which provides funding for businesses. Iām a fan of OakNorth but seeing them put that much money into a relatively obscure company & as part of a round that only included one other investor blew my mind slightly.
We donāt have a timescale for this right now Iām afraid, keep an eye on the blog & this post for updates.
Itās worth mentioning that weāve added Baillie Gifford Japan Trust (BGFD) to the app now -
Another does-what-it-says-on-the-tin trust. This trust, managed by the same firm behind Scottish Mortgage Trust, invest in a variety of enterprises in Japan, currently including Softbank, Rakuten and Sony.
I was thinking about Softbank this afternoon after reading a Boston Dynamics article. I would be interested in peoples view for the long term with Softbank, maybe with a new ceo or some change
