According to reports, the investment strategy for investment for the Vision Fund of SoftBank is being contemplated to be changed by the Japanese investment company’s CEO Masayoshi Son and wants to focus more on companies that have established and very transparent pathways to profitability and public offerings.

Additionally, compared to the company’s first $100 billion Vision Fund, Son also wants to reduce the speed of investments for the Vision Fund 2. The company had made investments worth about $80 billion from the Vision Fund within a period of less than three years. Reports claimed that Son will focus on investing in companies that have the potential to quickly achieve profitability.

These changes have been forced by the reaction of the market to some of the companies in which SoftBank had invested earlier. Investors of the Vision Fund have been critical of the company’s investment strategies following the recent failure of WeWork to go public as well as the bad performance of companies at the stock exchange such as Uber and Slack – all of which has significant investments from SoftBank. About $10.6 billion in WeWork has been invested by SoftBank, together with the Vision Fund.

Reports quoting sources have claimed that Son wants to become more actively involved in the decision making process of investment because of increased criticism of the investment strategy surrounding Vision Fund 2. However the reports also suggested that id there is a change in market conditions, Son could bring in further changes in his investment strategy.

There was no comment made on the issue by SoftBank.

Vision Fund 1 is nearly closed to new investments because SoftBank has already invested about 85 per cent of its $100 billion. The company wants to keep in reserve about 15 per cent of the capital money so that it can allow for follow-on investments in the companies in which it has already invested. The Vision Fund ended the second quarter with 81 investments.

The stated focus for the second Vision Fund remains unchanged: “to facilitate the continued acceleration of the artificial intelligence revolution through investment in market-leading, tech-enabled growth companies.”

The issue that Son has to tackle is to locate companies in the specific sectors that have a very clear strategy to achieve profitability. Millions, and even billions of dollars, have been taken by many companies backed by venture capital companies from SoftBank because currently they are no profitable and would not be so for some more years.

There is also some issues with the size of the second Vision Fund. An investment of $15 billion in Vision Fund 1 was made by Abu Dhabi state fund Mubadala Investment Co. the company has not yet decided on whether to invest in the second Vision Fund, said the fund’s head of ventures, Ibrahim Ajami, this week during a Bloomberg conference.

(Adapted from CNBC.com)

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