<div>Japanese internet and telecom conglomerate SoftBank Corp, which backs Indian companies Ola, Snapdeal and Housing.com, will avoid investing in early-stage firms, shifting its focus entirely towards backing more established companies, according to a report.</div><div> </div><div>The Tokyo-headquartered company will no longer make small bets in early-stage companies and instead focus on bigger investments in more mature businesses, according to a news report in re/code website quoting SoftBank’s India-born president Nikesh Arora.</div><div> </div><div>“As we look at the future for the next tens of years, we believe that the way to preserve the long-term sustainability of SoftBank is to be large, minority shareholders of many assets. We believe that it’s less crowded in the large-check marketplace,” SoftBank president Nikesh Arora was cited as saying by news website Re/code.</div><div> </div><div>After shutting its VC unit, SoftBank will invest directly in late stage start-ups, according to Re/code.</div><div> </div><div>SoftBank has invested close to $1 billion in these Indian Internet start-ups in the last six months and pledged to invest a total of $10 billion over a decade in the country.</div><div> </div><div>The company owns roughly a third of Alibaba, which has a market value of more than $180 billion. It is also one of the most prolific start-up investors with a portfolio of anywhere between 1,300 and 1,500 companies, according to various media reports.</div><div> </div><div>It’s unclear how the shift in strategy will affect SoftBank’s current and potential deals in India.</div><div> </div><div>The move marks the first significant move after Arora took over a larger role at the firm. Arora, who was senior vice president and chief business officer of Google, had quit the tech giant before joining SoftBank in September 2014. He is now one of the four non-Japanese in the 14-member board of SoftBank.</div>
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