SoftBank made sure the rights favour the Japanese group and give it a dominant position on the company’s capitalisation table, and in the event of the sale of the startup. Tiger Global and Yuri Milner, the DST Global founder, ponied up, while Sequoia opted out, in a classic pay-to-play situation. Sources say SoftBank is up against older investors in the company like Naspers and Tiger Global, among others. An early-stage investor posited on the condition of anonymity, “What can SoftBank do with these rights? Another prolific tech investor says that SoftBank is playing ahead of the opportunity.

Source: Economic Times April 24, 2018 05:26 UTC