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SoftBank Investing Another $25 Billion

SoftBank Investing Another $25 Billion

Christopher Webster
January 30, 2025

Startups:

Swan snags another $44M:

Swan is a French startup that helps other companies offer financial products at scale. The company can generate both virtual and physical cards that work with Apple Pay and Google Pay. Cards can be configured programmatically by Swan’s corporate clients with spending limits, authorized merchants, and more. They recently have secured another $44 million to close out the second part of their Series B funding round. Eight Road Ventures is leading the second part with existing investors Lakestar, Accel, Creandum, Hexa, and Bpifrance participating again. Swan has already processed over a billion in monthly transactions. What will be next for the company?

Stablecoin startups on the rise:

Startups are looking to solve the cross-border payments problem with stablecoins. What are stablecoins? They are cryptocurrencies that are tied to actual currencies or other commodities to help keep stable prices. No pump and dump scheme going on with these. That’s why U.S.-based Cedar Money is attacking this new market. They recently just closed a $9.9 million seed round led by QED Investors. Think of Cedar Money as a bridge between businesses and individuals transacting with different currencies. There is definitely a big market for this problem. Will Cedar Money be one of the startups that wins in this market?

Venture:

8VC looking to land another billion:

8VC is an Austin-based firm led by Palantir founder, Joe Lonsdale. He and his firm are looking to raise a billion for their sixth fund. This would be 14% more than their previous fund of $880 million, which closed in early 2023. Since its founding 10 years ago, 8VC has invested in over 600 companies, including Asana, Flexport, hims and hers, and Elon Musk’s The Boring Company. However, given Lonsdale’s defense roots, the firm’s investments in the sector have drawn the most attention. He has invested in a multitude of defense tech startups from autonomous military vehicles to robotic drone boats. Lonsdale is known to be a part of multiple billion dollar companies. Will he find another unicorn with this billion dollar fund?

Big Tech:

Does SoftBank have infinite money?:

Just when we thought SoftBank was done investing billions with OpenAI, they come out and announce that they are in talk to invest up to another $25 billion in OpenAI. This would bring the Japanese conglomerate total spend in AI initiatives to $40 billion. The potential investment would make SoftBank OpenAI’s largest single backer. The deal comes after both companies announced last week they would jointly invest $100 billion in Stargate, a U.S. data center project for OpenAI that could expand to $500 billion over four years. How much more will we see SoftBank spend this year?