Shared co-working space company WeWork announced that Japan-based SoftBank had invested $2 billion in the company at a $47 billion valuation. This investment was revealed by WeWork Chief Executive Adam Neumann in an interview with Fast Company earlier this week.
This brings SoftBank’s investment in WeWork at over $10 billion. WeWork also pointed out that this investment is not coming from SoftBank’s Vision Fund. The biggest investors in SoftBank’s Vision Fund’s are government-based backers in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. The other $8 billion investment in WeWork from SoftBank came from the SoftBank Vision fund.
Photo: WeWork
SoftBank was initially planning to invest $10 billion in WeWork to fund growth and another $10 billion to buy shares from existing investors, according to Reuters. That investment size would have given SoftBank a majority control of WeWork.
Masayoshi Son, the CEO of SoftBank, decided to drop the investment amount after the company’s stock dropped due to the market pullback. However, the deal has not yet been finalized. And WeWork and SoftBank are in the late stages of the negotiation process. The final deal is expected to be revealed next week.
WeWork also rebranded itself to The We Company, which is going to have separate business units which will please commercial office spaces (flagship WeWork business), operate elementary schools and coding academies (WeGrow), and rent it residential units (WeLive).
WeWork generated $1.25 billion in revenue for the first three quarters of 2018. However, the company saw a net loss of $1.22 billion during the same period.
This year, The We Company is planning to aggressively acquire other companies and hire additional talent. For example, the company is planning to hire 1,000 engineers.
