SoftBank Vision Fund shedding Jeff Housenbold, who led DoorDash offer

SoftBank’s Jeff Housenbold, who led the Eyesight Fund’s investments in corporations like DoorDash, OpenDoor and Wag, is leaving the agency later this calendar year.

SoftBank shook up the Silicon Valley investment world with the first Eyesight Fund in 2017, in the end increasing $100 billion, funded in big part by the Public Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Japanese company had been targeting an even greater total for Eyesight Fund 2 but scaled it way again last 12 months just after a lot of of its large-priced investments hit snags.

In a memo sent internally on Friday and seen by CNBC, Vision Fund head Rajeev Misra said that Housenbold is departing to “operate his personal business enterprise.” Housenbold has been with the Eyesight Fund in the course of its ups and downs, leading some of the most high-profile bargains with combined benefits.

“As a lot of of you know, Jeff was my initially seek the services of and in excess of the final three and a 50 percent years he productively led our investments in 17 providers across Fund 1 and Fund 2, like DoorDash (Sprint), Opendoor (Open up), Compass, Rappi, Alto, and Memphis Meats,” Misra wrote in the memo.

Axios previously claimed on his departure. Housenbold verified the transfer on Twitter.

Housenbold, who was previously CEO of Shutterfly, experienced a powerful conclusion to 2020, with DoorDash’s IPO and Opendoor’s general public current market debut through a particular goal acquisition corporation. SoftBank’s stake in foodstuff supply app DoorDash has jumped to $12 billion, with the inventory rallying considering that its IPO, and its stake in actual estate business OpenDoor is about $2 billion, according to FactSet.

He also had some losers. In 2018, he led a $300 million expense in canine-strolling application Wag ahead of promoting the Eyesight Fund’s stake again to the corporation considerably less than two several years later as the enterprise struggled. Also in 2018, the Vision Fund put $240 million into e-commerce get started-up Brandless, with Housenbold taking a board seat. Early last year, the corporation shut down and was later on recapitalized.

Housenbold spoke to CNBC in March of 2020 as the SoftBank was dealing with the fallout of the WeWork catastrophe and Uber’s struggles while also getting ready for a slowdown prompted by the pandemic. He was among the executives at the business considering its “Plan Bs.”  

“If the markets go into a extended slump of 12 to 24 months and there is certainly not access to public marketplaces, we will have to appear at increasing extra cash at the company stage,” Housenbold mentioned at the time. “You can find personal debt, there is equity gamers, there is mergers and acquisitions.”

Misra stated in the memo that Housenbold will continue to be with the Vision Fund for 6 months, and then serve as a senior adviser to Misra and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son. 

— CNBC’s Alex Sherman contributed to this report

Observe: Softbank Vision Fund controlling associate on Opendoor SPAC