SoftBank Vision Fund India head Sumer Juneja to also oversee Europe, Middle East

Misra, however, remains the CEO of Vision Fund 1.

Last year,
Juneja was elevated as a managing partner in the fund. He will shuttle between Mumbai and London, and be responsible for these markets which were once helmed by Yanni Pipilis. Pipilis will be joining Misra’s new venture.

Juneja will lead the India operations of the Vision Fund – one the country’s largest investors in new-age technology companies such as Delhivery, Swiggy, and Meesho, among others.

Juneja joined SoftBank in 2018 as partner and head of India and has since led investments in Swiggy, Meesho and edtech firm Eruditus. Before joining SoftBank, he was at Norwest Venture Partners, where he was a director at the US-headquartered venture capital’s India office.

Narendra Rathi and Sarthak Misra – who were promoted as investment directors earlier this year – will assist Juneja in driving India, said a person in the know of the development.

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Europe is among the Vision Fund’s largest markets with companies such as buy now pay later (BNPL) venture Klarna, robotics firm AutoStore, British fintech Revolut being a part of its portfolio.

Recently, the valuation of Sweden’s Klarna was cut to $6.7 billion from $46 billion, one of the highly-priced startups seeing its valuations plummet amid the funding downturn and ongoing tech winter.

In July, SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son said Misra, the chief executive officer, SB Investment Advisers, which manages
SoftBank Vision Fund,
will step down from his executive role in a major rejig at the conglomerate.

Son said he will transition from his current role and take on the responsibility as a vice-chairman.

SoftBank’s Vision Fund has had a tumultuous few quarters amid a rout of publicly-traded technology stocks and sliding portfolio
leading to massive losses of $17 billion in the June quarter of this year.

Following the June quarter results, Son had said unicorns that were unwilling to take a valuation cut would likely be facing a prolonged ‘tech winter’.

“Our Vision Fund saw huge losses but unfortunately unicorn company leaders still believe in their valuation and they would not accept the fact that they may have to see their valuation (go) lower than they think. So, until the multiple of unlisted companies is lower than [that] of listed companies, we should wait,”
Son had said in a post-earnings briefing.

To make matters more difficult for the Vision Fund and Son, shares of the company fell – which are almost 50% off from its peak last year – after
reports suggested that hedge fund Elliott Management Corp. has sold off almost all of its position in the Japanese conglomerate.

Elliott’s dumping of SoftBank shares comes as investors increasingly lose confidence in Son and his ability to close the valuation gap between the company and its portfolio holdings.