ChainCatcher news, OpenAI has reached an agreement with Japan's SoftBank Group, where approximately 400 current and former employees will cash out millions of dollars by selling shares to SoftBank. According to sources, SoftBank will acquire OpenAI shares at a price of $210 per share, with a total amount potentially reaching $1.6 billion. Employees can cash out part of their equity through this transaction, provided they received restricted stock units over two years ago.OpenAI's current valuation is $157 billion, and eligible employees must decide whether to sell their shares by December 24. Current employees can cash out up to $10 million each, while former employees have a maximum limit of $2 million.The total expected amount for this transaction is $2 billion, of which SoftBank has agreed to purchase $1.6 billion in shares, with the remaining $400 million in shares potentially going unsold.

ChainCatcher News, U.S. House Speaker Johnson stated that the "Trump effect" has already emerged. SoftBank will invest $100 billion over the next four years to create 100,000 new jobs in the U.S., marking another positive signal. Looking forward to Trump's second term and the upcoming good news. (Jin Ten)

ChainCatcher news, according to CNBC, SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son will visit President-elect Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate on Monday and announce a $100 billion investment in the United States over the next four years.Sources revealed that Masayoshi Son will also commit to creating 100,000 jobs focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and related infrastructure, with the funds to be deployed before Trump's term ends. It is reported that this funding may come from various sources controlled by SoftBank, including the Vision Fund, capital projects, or chip manufacturer Arm Holdings (ARM.US).

ChainCatcher news, according to Jinshi reports, Trump's press secretary Caroline Levitt confirmed that Trump will meet with the CEO of SoftBank today.

ChainCatcher news, according to informed sources, former SoftBank Group executive Akshay Naheta, known for overseeing some of its largest deals, is currently in preliminary talks to sell a minority stake in the stablecoin payment startup he co-founded.Distributed Technologies Research Ltd. (DTR), which uses blockchain to process cross-border payments with stablecoins, will use the funds to expand into new markets, including the United States, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity as the negotiations are private.They noted that it is unclear what the size and valuation of the initial public offering will be, as the company is in talks with multiple strategic investors and venture capital firms.

ChainCatcher news, OpenAI has received a new investment of $1.5 billion from SoftBank and allows employees to sell shares through a tender offer. A person familiar with the matter said that this new tender offer, which has not been reported before, will end this week. This deal is driven by SoftBank billionaire founder and CEO Masayoshi Son, who insisted on acquiring more shares after investing $500 million in OpenAI's previous funding round.Another person familiar with the matter stated that this tender offer is unrelated to OpenAI's potential plans to restructure the company as a for-profit entity.

ChainCatcher news, SoftBank and Apollo are discussing the establishment of a large fund to invest in data centers, chip factories, and other artificial intelligence projects. According to informed sources, both parties have discussed setting up a fund exceeding $20 billion, but negotiations have cooled since this summer and may not yield results. The informed sources stated that the joint venture fund could involve industry partners including Arm. One informed source mentioned that SoftBank has also been negotiating with other sources of financing, but the discussions with Apollo are the most in-depth.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Information, informed sources say that SoftBank's Vision Fund has agreed to invest $500 million in OpenAI's latest funding round, which values OpenAI at $150 billion pre-investment.

ChainCatcher news, according to market news, SoftBank will support the artificial intelligence startup Perplexity with a valuation of 3 billion dollars. (Jin Shi)

ChainCatcher news, according to Bloomberg, informed sources revealed that Elliott Management has acquired a significant stake in SoftBank Group Corp. and is pushing for a $15 billion buyback plan.According to the FT, Elliott has accumulated shares worth over $2 billion and has been in contact with SoftBank executives in recent months. Elliott believes that such a large-scale stock buyback will help founder Masayoshi Son convey his confidence in SoftBank to the market. The company's stock price rose 4.6% in Tokyo.This is Elliott's second attempt at SoftBank, which was once one of the largest and most influential technology investment firms in the world. Elliott accumulated about $3 billion in shares in 2020, after which SoftBank significantly accelerated its buyback pace. Elliott later sold most of its stake in SoftBank.A representative from SoftBank declined to comment. A representative from Elliott did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In recent years, SoftBank has reduced its bets on startups. After the value of key assets like Arm Holdings Plc soared, the company is preparing to increase its investments in artificial intelligence and other areas.

ChainCatcher news, according to the Financial Times, SoftBank plans to invest $9 billion in artificial intelligence projects.SoftBank's Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto stated, "In principle, we will maintain the same trend in the pace of our investment activities. From now on, we hope to increase our investments in AI companies." Currently, SoftBank is facing intense competition in the field of artificial intelligence, as tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have invested billions of dollars to collaborate with startups to build AI models.

ChainCatcher news, according to official sources, the Solana-based GameFi project Song of Rising has completed a new round of strategic financing, with Softbank Consulting, a subsidiary of Softbank, participating as the lead investor. Both parties will accelerate the joint promotion of the Solana GameFi ecosystem.It is reported that Song of Rising is developed by a Steam game development team and is a creative pixel-style metaverse project that not only integrates NFT asset interactions but also includes DeFi module construction and metaverse scene building, allowing users to fully enjoy the leisure gaming experience brought by GameFi in a relaxed and casual atmosphere.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, 18 FTX investment firms including Temasek, Sequoia Capital, and SoftBank have been named as defendants in a class-action lawsuit filed in Miami due to their association with the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX. The plaintiffs claim that these investment firms are responsible for "aiding and abetting" FTX's fraud. The plaintiffs point out that the FTX cryptocurrency exchange violated multiple securities laws and misappropriated customer funds, while the defendants assert that they conducted due diligence.

ChainCatcher news, according to Bloomberg citing informed sources, SoftBank Group's Vision Fund is preparing to start a new round of layoffs as early as this week, affecting about 13% of its employees, primarily in the United States.It is reported that as of the end of March this year, the fund had approximately 349 employees worldwide, having reduced its workforce by 30% from 500 employees in the previous fiscal year. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, according to TechCrunch, SoftBank is selling its venture capital division in Korea, SoftBank Ventures Asia (SBVA), to Singapore-based venture capital firm The Edgeof. This acquisition comes after SoftBank and its Vision Fund faced significant losses amid a tech downturn and macroeconomic slowdown. The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but The Edgeof aims to complete the acquisition this year.The Edgeof was founded last month by SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son's brother Taizo Son and Mistletoe Managing Director Atsushi Taira, with the goal of transforming the startup ecosystem across Asia through αStartups (using advanced technology to solve fundamental problems in the world).SoftBank Ventures Asia has approximately $2 billion in assets under management (AUM) and invests in many companies across Asia, including the South Korean home application OHouse, the Japanese sneaker resale platform SODA, the Indonesian cloud kitchen startup Yummy, and the hyper-localized social commerce company Super. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, metaverse development company LandVault announced the completion of a new funding round of $37 million, led by The Sandbox, SoftBank, and Kingsway Capital, with participation from HodlCo, Gemini Frontier Fund, and others.Over the past two years, LandVault has collaborated with partners such as Heineken, L'Oréal, and Mastercard to create metaverse infrastructure. The company will use this funding to continue its Web3 expansion and develop AI tools while scaling its teams in Asia, Dubai, Europe, and the United States. In November 2021, LandVault completed a Series B funding round, raising $25 million. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, according to TechCrunch, after canceling its plan to go public via SPAC at a valuation of $10.4 billion in 2022, the stock and crypto investment platform eToro completed a $250 million funding round at a valuation of $3.5 billion, with participation from ION Group, Social Leverage, SoftBank, and Spark Capital.Previously, ChainCatcher reported in May last year that eToro achieved significant success in 2021 due to its "bet" on the cryptocurrency business and announced its entry into the NFT space, launching a $20 million fund to purchase blue-chip NFTs and support emerging projects in the field. (Source link)

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, SoftBank will become the official network validator for the gaming blockchain Oasys, focusing on developing blockchain-based services for the gaming industry.Currently, Bandai Namco Research, SEGA, Square Enix, Netmarble, and 17 other companies are the 21 initial validators of Oasys. In the next batch of validators, 4 more companies will join the network, bringing the total number of validators to 25. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, SoftBank released its latest financial report showing that the Vision Fund recorded a loss of 660.1 billion yen (approximately 4.992 billion USD) in the third quarter, compared to a profit of 50.35 billion yen (approximately 0.381 billion USD) in the same period last year. The Vision Fund's investment loss in the third quarter was 730.36 billion yen (approximately 5.526 billion USD).It is reported that SoftBank wrote down its FTX investment to zero on November 15, 2022, claiming that "the investment in FTX was less than 100 million USD," and it only accounted for a small portion of its 1 trillion USD Vision Fund, which would not have a material impact on the overall company's share value. (Source link)