Japanese telecom and internet major Softbank Corp has named Odisha born Rajeev Misra as head of its ambitious $100 billion fund which will invest in technology companies across the world. Softbank is one of the largest investors in the Indian mobile and consumer internet market, and counts online marketplace Sanpdeal and cab hailing app Ola as portfolio companies.

Softbank announced the launch of Softbank Vision Fund which it will “seed” with $25 billion in a strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, chipping in $45 billion. The remaining amount will be raised from other investors, and the two parties aim to deploy the corpus over next five years.

Softbank has been on the hunt for unicorns, those high performing start-ups like Ola and Snapdeal which the firm’s India-born president Nikesh Arora invested in. Arora, the blue-eyed boy of Softbank’s brass before leaving a few months ago, was being paid a whopping RS 500 crore annual package.

Rajeev’s pay package, however, is undisclosed. Eldest son of late Mahesh Chandra Misra and Maya Misra and a native of Bhoisahi in Balasore town, Rajeev is considered the first Odia to hold the position of a top executive in a multinational company like SoftBank Group Corp.

Misra joined Softbank Group in 2014 as head of strategic finance and also works with SoftBank Internet and Media Inc, which Nikesh Arora headed as CEO. Arora left Softbank in June this year.
Before joining Softbank, Misra was the senior managing director and partner at New York-based investment firm Fortress, where he lead debt trading. Before Fortress, Misra spent 5 years at UBS as the Global Head of Credit and Head of Fixed Income, Currencies, and Commodities in Europe, Middle East, and Africa. He is also an independent director at media and film distribution firm Eros.

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