SoftBank's $100 billion tech fund zeros in on big data

It has been a year since the SoftBank Vision Fund was launched, and a pattern has emerged. Masayoshi Son has been using his nearly $100 billion armamentarium to invest in technology companies that gather user data. According to the SoftBank Group's most recent results, the fund, which marked its first anniversary on Sunday, had invested $29.7 billion by the end of March. This means about one-third of the fund's cash has been invested. The fund contributed 302.9 billion yen ($2.72 billion) to SoftBank Group operating profit for the year through March. The huge fund began with a mountain of money that was roughly equal to the total invested amounts of all the world's other venture capital funds.