AIBRIEF
The third $10 billion instalment from SoftBank's Vision Fund 2 completes a $30 billion OpenAI round commitment, giving SoftBank a 13% stake at the AI lab's $852 billion last round valuation.
SoftBank closed the third $10 billion instalment of its $30 billion OpenAI commitment on Thursday, lifting its cumulative position to $64.6 billion for a 13% stake in the AI lab behind ChatGPT (Reuters via The Star).
The final tranche was funded through SoftBank's Vision Fund 2, the same vehicle that delivered the first two $10 billion instalments. OpenAI had earlier in 2026 secured $122 billion in total commitments at an $852 billion valuation, with Amazon, Nvidia, and SoftBank anchoring the raise.
To finance the final push, SoftBank raised $11.1 billion last month in the largest high-yield corporate bond sale globally, a record that shifted a slice of the mark-to-market risk onto public bondholders while SoftBank refinanced the bet with long-dated debt. The company also cancelled the remaining $10 billion of undrawn capacity under a $40 billion bridge loan secured earlier in 2026, replacing short-term bank exposure with retail-accessible bonds.
Founder Masayoshi Son has positioned SoftBank as one of the world's largest backers of OpenAI. Whether the $852 billion valuation holds, and how the new $11.1 billion bond prices in the secondary market, will set the next test for the bet.