Japanese Venture Capital firm SoftBank has invested $18.5 billion in co-working space startup WeWork. This sum is greater than the entire GDP of Bolivia, a South American country with a population of more than 11.5 million.
Crux of the Matter
This surprising news was delivered by SoftBank’s new chairman Marcelo Claure.
“We have guaranteed the future of WeWork, but more importantly is we’re putting the future back into our hands. There’s no more days needed to go fundraising. There’s no more days needed to go prove to the investor community that we’re a viable company. To put the things in context, that is bigger than the GDP of my country where I came from. That’s a country where there’s 11 million people.” said Claure, a native of Bolivia.
This move was made to secure the position of SoftBank. As for how WeWork saves the business, that’s not clear yet, said Claure.
WeWork’s planned IPO was cancelled earlier this year and one of its founders Adam Neumann was pushed out. Amidst this chaos, Softbank has acquired an 80% stake in the company.
Curiopedia
WeWork (officially “The We Company”) is an American commercial real estate company that provides shared workspaces for technology startups and services for other enterprises. Founded in 2010, it is headquartered in New York City. WeWork has more than 5,000 employees in over 280 locations, spread across 86 cities in 32 countries. Read More
The economy of Bolivia is the 95th largest economy in the world in nominal terms and the 87th economy in terms of purchasing power parity. It is classified by the World Bank to be a lower middle income country. With a Human Development Index of 0.693, it is ranked 118th (medium human development). Read More
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