SoftBank Ventures Asia
软银亚洲
SoftBank Ventures Asia is the Asia-focused venture arm of SoftBank, appearing in elsewhere's corpus primarily as an investor in Chinese robotics and African fintech. In 2020–2021 it co-led a RMB 1.5 billion-plus funding round for Keenon Robotics (擎朗智能) alongside SoftBank Vision Fund, during a pandemic-driven boom in contactless service robots . Wang Yinzhen, then a vice president at SoftBank Ventures Asia, publicly endorsed founder Li Tong's decision to downsize and refocus the company when the sector cooled . Earlier, in 2019, it participated as a follow-on investor in OPay's $120 million Series B, an African mobile-payments company incubated by Opera . The fund's recorded activity in elsewhere's corpus clusters in the 2019–2021 period, with the Keenon Robotics coverage being the most recent detailed trace.
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Coverage
From Bare-Bones Beginnings to Top of the Pack: 100,000 Robots and 15 Years of Bare-Knuckle Survival | Yunqi Capital Doers --- The title alone tells the story: "bare-bones" (毛坯房) and "bare-knuckle survival" (极限求生). These aren't buzzwords — they're the lived reality of a company that spent fifteen years clawing its way from nothing to industry leader. ## The 100,000-Robot Milestone In 2024, this robotics firm crossed a threshold few in China's hardware sector ever reach: deploying 100,000 units in the field. Not prototypes. Not showroom pieces. Production robots operating in factories, warehouses, and logistics hubs across the country. The number matters because hardware scales differently than software. Each unit demands supply chain discipline, manufacturing consistency, and after-service infrastructure. Ten thousand proves product-market fit. One hundred thousand proves operational mastery. ## The 15-Year Arc The company was founded in 2009 — ancient history by Chinese tech standards. That year, Alibaba's Taobao was still fighting eBay. WeChat didn't exist. The term "new energy vehicles" barely registered. The early years were spent in literal毛坯房: unfinished concrete spaces in industrial zones, the kind of startup offices where winter means seeing your breath and summer
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Gaorong Monthly · November | Gaorong Ventures Wins "2019 China VC Firm of the Year" and Other Awards, 24 Portfolio Companies Named to 36Kr's "King of New Economy" List
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African Mobile Payments and Mobility Service Provider OPay Closes $120 Million Series B Round | Gaorong Ventures News
OPay is one of Africa's fastest-scaling companies, having grown into Nigeria's leading mobile payments and ride-hailing service provider.
