SoftBank's Son meets PM, startup founders

MUMBAI: Billionaire investor and SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son met PM Narendra Modi and 20 startup founders in New Delhi on Wednesday, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told TOI.

Son's India visit comes at a time when a clutch of SoftBank's portfolio startups including Swiggy, Ola Electric and FirstCry have made their public market debut. Son, who has overseen SoftBank investments worth $15 billion in India, had last visited the country in March 2023.

Among startup founders who met Son were Oyo's Ritesh Agarwal, Lenskart's Peyush Bansal, Paytm's Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal, FirstCry's Supam Maheshwari, Unacademy's Gaurav Munjal and Blinkit's Albinder Dhindsa. Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy was also in attendance, sources said.

At the core of Son's discussions with founders was artificial intelligence, a technology on which SoftBank is betting aggressively. At its earnings presentation earlier this month, SoftBank said that it will continue to invest in companies driving the AI revolution. He told the gathering of founders that they should look at AI from a 10-year perspective. "Son told founders that making a 2-3 year AI plan is a recipe for failure," sources aware of the discussion said. Son said that AI will have a capex of $9-10 trillion globally, adding that chip designing will be the "heartbeat" of the AI economy.