Softbank Vision Fund, the $100 billion fund managed by Japanese Conglomerate Softbank Group Corp., has elevated its India head Sumer Juneja to the role of Managing Partner.
Mumbai-based Juneja was promoted alongside three other investors at the fund including US-based Lydia Jett, who will be the Vision Fund’s first female Managing Partner in an investing role. Vikas Parekh, an Indian-origin executive operating out of Silicon Valley, and China-based Dennis Chang have also been promoted to Managing Partner.
Juneja is the second Managing Partner at the Vision Fund out of India after Munish Varma, who is now based out of London and oversees India. He joined Softbank Vision Fund in late 2018 as partner and the head of India and set up the firm’s India office.
Juneja will report to both Varma and Rajeev Misra, the CEO of Softbank Vision Fund.
Prior to Softbank, Juneja was at Norwest Venture Partners, where he led growth equity and venture investments. An alumnus of London School of Economics and Political Science, Juneja also previously worked with Goldman Sachs’ Asian Special Situations Group.
Juneja is seen as responsible for diversifying Softbank’s India portfolio from investments in e-commerce and ride hailing businesses to other segments such as edtech, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), business-2-business marketplaces and social commerce.
Over the last one year, Softbank Vision Fund has invested over $3 billion in India across dozen investments in companies such as Flipkart, food delivery aggregator Swiggy (Bundl Technologies Pvt Ltd), social commerce business Meesho Payments Pvt Ltd, b2b firms such as OfBusiness (OfB Tech Pvt Ltd) as well as edtech companies such as Unacademy (Sorting Hat Technologies Pvt Ltd) and Eruditus Education Pvt Ltd.
It has also invested in SaaS companies such as Whatfix and Mindtickle Inc. and led a funding round into used cars-aggregator Cars24.
Softbank’s Flipkart investment in India was also led by Jett, who leads the firm’s US consumer internet sector team. Jett has also led other Softbank investments in Indonesia-tech company Tokopedia (merged with GoJek earlier this year) and South Koreak’s e-commerce retailer Coupang, which went public in the US earlier this year.
Coupang’s $4.6 billion US IPO was the largest by a foreign issuer since Alibaba Group Holding Corp’s list in 2014.
