SoftBank Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son and The Weeknd Tomohiro Ohsumi GETTY IMAGES, Axelle/Bauer-Griffin FILMMAGICComing off its best quarter ever, the world’s largest tech investor, SoftBank, is on the hunt for its next billion dollar IPO. By fourth quarter 2020, the company was deploying cameras in Compass stores in Toronto, North Carolina and Houston. Then in February 2021, SoftBank led Standard’s $150 million Series C round for a total raise of $238.5 million and suddenly the startup was worth a billion dollars. With SoftBank’s deep investment in physical retail and automation, the company now had a path to scale with Compass, a SoftBank portfolio company which has 15,000 locations worldwide. “To me, it’s still early days for AI where expectations of what’s possible can be unrealistic.

Source: Forbes May 01, 2021 08:25 UTC