The strong investments of the Japanese bank focused on technology center in Mexico. The rumor was confirmed: SoftBank will invest in the Kavak used car platform.
About Softbank
SoftBank is an empire of artificial intelligence companies, Internet businesses and new transport companies.
Softbank will allocate more than US $ 5,000 million in different startups in Latin America. One is Kavak, the Mexican company dedicated to the sale of used cars.
The car market… is it rentable?
The car market is one of the weaknesses of SoftBank, the bank that founded and leads the Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son.
For example, in May 2018, SoftBank injected US $ 2.250 million into the General Motors autonomous vehicle unit, Cruise.
It was only a few months after he used US $ 9,000 million to acquire a 15% stake in Uber and after he bought a part of China’s leading travel firm, Didi Chuxing.
In October of that year, he allied with the automaker Toyota to announce the creation of a joint venture that develops autonomous driving technologies and shared transport services. together, they formed Monet Technologies.
But Latin America is a market that reveals Son and all signs indicate that it will be a key destination for its investments.
This Monday, it was known that it will invest part of a US $ 5,000 million fund reserved for Latin America in Kavak, the Mexican used car platform.
“We are proud to join and invest in Kavak Mexico”, Marcelo Claure, investment supervisor at SoftBank Group Corp in Latin America, posted on LinkedIn.
The announcement was a rumor circulating in business asses and comes two months after Reuters reported that SoftBank was in very advanced conversations to invest in the startup.
A second investment
Kavak is SoftBank’s second investment in Mexico, after the Japanese conglomerate specially focused on technology invested in the Clip payment firm.
They are presiding over a huge empire of artificial intelligence companies, Internet businesses and new transport companies that can collect large amounts of data on traffic patterns, passenger requests and other transport trends.
SoftBank is a true international “octopus” in terms of investments
At the beginning of 2018, in association with the government of Saudi Arabia, signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a solar park that will cost US $ 200,000 million and is exponentially larger than any other project of this type.
In Latin America, the bank also led a financing round of approximately US $ 17.6 million in the Brazilian used car platform Volanty, where the Kaszek Ventures fund in Argentina, which is also an investor in Kavak, also participated.
SoftBank also injected US $ 1.5 billion into the Chehaoduo Group in China, which has a leading used car site.
Also published on Medium.