SoftBank's India Shift: Small Bets, Big Roles

India's major startup investors are moving beyond their traditional focus on large, late-stage deals. They are increasingly engaging in joint ventures within tech infrastructure and commerce sectors, reflecting an AI-led strategic adjustment. This new approach involves smaller deal sizes and a noticeable decrease in overall deal volume. Investors are demonstrating a greater willingness to assume active collaborator and operator roles in the companies they back.

A prime example of this evolving trend is SoftBank's recent investment. After a nearly four-year hiatus from significant Indian startup funding, SoftBank Vision Fund invested under USD30 million in the one-year-old AI coding startup Emergent. Valued at USD300 million, this represents one of the smallest initial investments SoftBank has ever made in India. This move signals a clear departure from SoftBank's historical pattern of making substantial investments, often exceeding USD100 million.