Silicon Valley Bank Collapse Spotlights Softbank’s Startup Financing

(Bloomberg) — As the world assesses the fallout from Silicon Valley Bank’s implosion, investors are casting a wary eye at SoftBank Group Corp. — by many measures, the startup arena’s biggest backer and advocate.

Before the meltdown, Masayoshi Son’s investment powerhouse — which has poured more than $140 billion into names from WeWork to ByteDance Ltd. to DoorDash Inc. — had already been reeling from the post-pandemic economic downturn. Now investors are cautiously pulling back despite the overnight pledge from U.S. authorities to rescue the lender sitting at the heart of Silicon Valley’s venture capital ecosystem.