Venture Capital

Why India went missing from SoftBank’s big AI bets

Sai Keerthi

Sayan Sen

February 14, 2025 | 4 Min Read

SoftBank's focus on India appears to be on its high-profile exits, with no signs of fresh investments in new ventures, even as it chases AI glory elsewhere.

SoftBank’s latest earnings call was all about AI—its OpenAI partnership, the colossal $500 billion Stargate data centre project, and aggressive AI investments. But one thing was conspicuously absent: India.

Despite pouring over $14 billion into its third-largest market over the past decade, India doesn’t feature in SoftBank’s AI vision.

After a two-year pause, SoftBank tiptoed back into India in 2024 with four investments—Eruditus (edtech), Whatfix (SaaS), Meesho (e-commerce), and Netradyne (AI vision). Promising? Sure. But not exactly the AI gold rush SoftBank is chasing elsewhere with blockbuster bets on OpenAI and Perplexity.

Rather than backing AI-first startups in India, SoftBank seems to be preferring companies with AI-powered use cases—think Lenskart’s AI-driven virtual try-ons or Swiggy and Meesho’s AI-enhanced demand forecasting.

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