SoftBank was once seen as permanent capital across venture and public markets. After a tumultuous run, they have two new big IPOs.
What’s happening:
- Two new IPOs are hitting Wall Street that both have significant backing from SoftBank
- Arm, the British unicorn chip maker, is set to debut on the public markets with a valuation close to $50B in one of the largest IPOs in United States history
- Neumora Therapeutics, a biotech company developing drugs for brain disease, is set to go public at approximately a $2.7B valuation
Why it matters:
- Large sized IPOs have all but stopped completely on major US exchanges as of late
- These two new listings may signal a renewed interest for IPOs and a broader sense of confidence for public markets
- SoftBank has been an integral part of the capital raising ecosystem in North America for some time and these blockbuster IPOs likely bodes well for their future activity across venture capital and public markets
Going deeper:
- There is extra excitement around speculation that Arm will be the next benefactor of the AI boom with Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) at all time highs
- SoftBank acquired Arm for $32B, meaning roughly only 10% of the company will be held by other funds and investors
- Currently, Arm has an impressive list of partners who they design chips for including Apple and Qualcomm
- Arm is the co founder of DeepTech Labs, a venture fund and incubator that invests $100-$350K in post seed startups working on challenging technology problems
- This is particularly noteworthy as Nvidia has made waves by ramping up their venture capital investments leading many to speculate if Arm has similar plans once they are a public company
