SoftBank would reduce startup funding by half this year

On Thursday, Japan-based investment company SoftBank

announced that it has reported a massive net loss of 1.708 trillion yen for the fiscal year ending March 31. Following this, the company informed that it would slash startup funding by more than half this year. According to the reports by Nikkei Asia, the investment giant also registered its biggest-ever quarterly net loss of 2.1 trillion yen for the January-March quarter.

In the January-March quarter, the Japanese company invested $2.5 billion significantly less than the $10.4 billion it spent in the previous quarter. In the last fiscal year, Softbank invested more than $46 billion in startups.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son

said that compared to last year, "the amount of new investments (in startups) will be half or could be as small as a quarter". On Thursday, just ahead of the announcement of the results, the shares of the company plunged 8 percent. The Financial Times reported, "Other poor performers included Singaporean ride-hailing company Grab, US food delivery firm DoorDash and Indian payments group Paytm, which together lost close to $5 billion over the quarter, according to Redex Research analyst Kirk Boodry's estimates.”