Rajeev Misra takes a step back at SoftBank to set up new fund

Rajeev Misra, SoftBankBank founder Masayoshi Son’s chief lieutenant, is relinquishing a key role at the Japanese conglomerate just months after he took on additional responsibilities, as he prepares to launch a new fund.

Rajeev is in talks with former colleagues from Deutsche Bank to set up the fund, according to people familiar with the development. The new fund will have a wider remit than SoftBank Vision Fund, said another person briefed on the matter.

Son has informed his leadership team that Rajeev will continue as CEO of SoftBank Investment Advisors as well as lead SoftBank Vision Fund I, the world’s largest technology-focused investment vehicle with a corpus of $100 billion.

Rajeev will, however, step down as CEO of SoftBank Vision Fund II and assume a non-executive role as Vice Chairman, with Son taking a more direct role in managing the fund. Rajeev had taken charge of SoftBank Group’s Latin America Funds in March following the resignation of COO Marcelo Claure.

A spokesperson for SoftBank declined to comment on specific queries sent by YourStory.

Some of the investors, or limited partners, in SoftBank Vision Fund I are expected to be LPs in the new vehicle Rajeev is establishing, said the people familiar with the development. Former SoftBank Management CEO and Vice-President Akshay Naheta will be joining Rajeev’s new platform, they said, declining to be identified. Akshay, too, is a former Deutsche Bank executive.

The new platform will be a late-stage multi-asset fund, and likely co-invest with SB Vision Fund II, they said.

Rajeev could not be immediately reached for comment.

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SoftBank has struggled to raise a corpus matching the size of the first fund for Vision Fund II. Following the botched IPO of WeWork, in which SoftBank was a major investor, the Japanese firm lost out on commitments from several investors for the second fund. This forced it to bankroll fund II, which currently has a corpus of $55 billion.

SoftBank Vision Fund’s India team is led by Sumer Juneja, who joined the Japanese investment major from Norwest Venture Partners in December 2018. Sumer was promoted to Managing Partner last year. Munish Varma, another Managing Partner, who has been at the firm since 2017, is involved in India deals including in Paytm, Policybazaar, Firstcry and Oyo.