Unicorns, Startups Should Prepare For Longer Funding Winter, Says SoftBank's Masayoshi Son

As the Japanese investment firm Softbank announced terrible results for the second consecutive quarter this year, Masayoshi Son, the company's founder and CEO, cautioned unicorns and startups on Monday to get ready for a hard and prolonged funding winter.

Son stated that unicorn leaders "still believe in their values and they wouldn't accept that they may have to see their valuations fall lower than they imagine" in the results call after announcing a $23.4 billion net loss for the June quarter. The 64-year-old businessman cautioned that while the winter for publicly traded firms is still going on, a similar slowdown for startups may persist "longer." When the stock market falls down so much, Son said, "Now seems like the ideal time to invest. I feel the want to do so, but if I act on it, we could suffer a blow that would be irrevocable, and that is intolerable."
 

The net loss for the quarter ending in June, according to the business, "was reported primarily owing to monetisation of investments in public portfolio companies." Son encouraged businesses to keep cash on hand to weather the financial crisis. He declared, "The world is utterly confused." In the most recent fiscal year, Softbank spent more than $46 billion in companies. Launched in 2017, SoftBank's $100 billion Vision Fund has the support of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi.