I'm not sure about new investments but I'd say that the author of OP's article is onto something here.
Softbank backed Lemonade is about to IPO in 6 months with a 2 billion dollar valuation. Neither their valuation nor an IPO makes sense to anyone in the industry. Lemonade is 99% marketing hype. Both the insurance book and the tech at the company are suspect at best.
The other one that's hit my radar recently is Compass, another Softbank backed company looking to IPO in the next 2 years at a stupid high (I've heard $5b) valuation. But they're cash flow negative with no path to profitability and they're increasing their spend rate instead of lowering it. So why would your average investor buy the stock?
Neither of those are mentioned in the article but it does seem like companies backed by Softbank are behaving pretty strangely.
Giving any entrepreneur $300m or $1b (in the case of Nuro) and not expecting "strange behaviour" would be weird.... that's private jet, Four Season suites for conferences with butlers, and Thomas Keller catering for company Xmas party type money.
Softbank backed Lemonade is about to IPO in 6 months with a 2 billion dollar valuation. Neither their valuation nor an IPO makes sense to anyone in the industry. Lemonade is 99% marketing hype. Both the insurance book and the tech at the company are suspect at best.
The other one that's hit my radar recently is Compass, another Softbank backed company looking to IPO in the next 2 years at a stupid high (I've heard $5b) valuation. But they're cash flow negative with no path to profitability and they're increasing their spend rate instead of lowering it. So why would your average investor buy the stock?
Neither of those are mentioned in the article but it does seem like companies backed by Softbank are behaving pretty strangely.