Investments · Smart glass
SoftBank Vision Fund invests $1.1 billion in smart glass maker View
- Investor
- SoftBank Group (via SoftBank Vision Fund) (Tokyo)
- In
- View, Milpitas, California
- Value
- $1.1B
- Status
- Completed in 2018.
- Date
- 2018-11-02
SoftBank Group's Vision Fund was the sole investor in a $1.1 billion round in View, a Milpitas, California maker of glass that tints automatically to control light and heat. The money was to fund an expansion of View's plant in Olive Branch, Mississippi.
Why it matters
The round was one of the Vision Fund's largest in a US hardware maker and tied its money to manufacturing in Mississippi.
A single-investor round
SoftBank was the only investor in the round. Before it, View had raised about $800 million from investors including Corning, Madrone Capital Partners, TIAA Investments and a New Zealand sovereign wealth fund.
The Mississippi plant
View, then called Soladigm, announced its Olive Branch, Mississippi factory in 2010 and began shipping from it in 2012. Reports said the new money was meant to expand manufacturing capacity there and to continue development of longer-term uses of its glass in security and displays.
Sources
Kakehashi M&A News home
