Rajeev Misra is formally leaving his leadership role at SoftBank's venture capital arm after seven years defined by controversy.
Rajeev Misra is to leave his position as CEO of SoftBank Investment Advisors, parent of the $100bn SoftBank Vision Fund, according to the company. Alex Clavel, who is co-CEO along with Misra, will become the sole leader of the company after Misra’s departure.
It marks the end of a ten-year period with Japan’s SoftBank Group, including a tumultuous seven years as co-leader of one of the world’s highest profile investment funds. Misra joined as head of strategic finance in 2014, before setting up the Vision Fund in 2017, working closely with the group’s founder Masayoshi Son.
The Vision Fund became the world’s largest technology venture capital fund upon establishment, when it raised $100bn, which included a $45bn investment by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and $15bn from SoftBank Group.
Over the next few years, the fund became notorious for a string of investment failures, with Son and the fund’s management coming under criticism for a perceived lack of due diligence and poor investment strategy. High-profile controversies included the fund’s $4.4bn investment in the office space company WeWork, which rescinded its IPO filing after its profitability came into question. It also invested around $2bn in Katerra, a US startup doing off-site construction projects, which filed for bankruptcy in 2021 after a bailout from the Vision Fund failed to keep it afloat.
Following a fall in confidence in the fund, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, which launched in 2019, failed to raise to its target. In 2022, Misra announced he was scaling down his responsibilities, including as manager of Vision Fund 2.
And while the fund had some successes, including an investment in the US-based e-commerce startup Coupang, which sells in South Korea, its legacy is mainly one of extravagant investment in the run up to 2021’s tech boom, followed by cost-cutting and redundancies when the fund failed to turn a profit.
Before SoftBank, Misra held leadership positions on Wall Street, including 12 years at Deutsche Bank where he was global head of credit trading, securitisation and commodities. He then joined UBS as leader of its fixed income, currencies and commodities division in 2009, following the global financial crisis.
In 2022, he set up a separate $6bn fund called One Investment Management, with backing from Abu Dhabi, which he will continue to lead.
