SoftBank's own filings record the pullback after 2021

The record

SoftBank Group Corp. released its own Consolidated Financial Report for the fiscal year ended 31 March 2023, dated Tokyo, 11 May 2023, disclosing that its SoftBank Vision Funds segment made new and follow-on investments totaling $3.14 billion for the year, 'a significant reduction from $44.26 billion in the previous fiscal year.' The same report records an investment loss of $17.3 billion at Vision Fund 1 and $18.4 billion at Vision Fund 2 for the year, and states the funds 'significantly curtailed investments' while continuing to sell existing holdings, including full exits from Uber and KE Holdings.

What the sources establish

SoftBank's own filing documents one of the largest single retreats by a non-traditional, cross-over venture investor in the period: a 93% year-on-year fall in new capital deployed. That retreat lines up with a separate measure, in the National Venture Capital Association's own 2026 Yearbook data pack, of average US venture post-money valuations: $280.9 million in 2021, falling to $203.5 million in 2022 and $169.7 million in 2023, before recovering to $279.5 million in 2024 and $552.5 million in 2025. Median post-money valuations moved far less over the same years, $30.2 million to $48.8 million, which the gap between average and median suggests is because a small number of very large, AI-era rounds, not a broad market recovery, drove the 2024-2025 rebound in the average. Neither document states that SoftBank's retreat caused the 2021-2023 valuation decline; both describe the same period from different vantage points.

Scope and revision

SoftBank's figures cover its own two Vision Funds only, for its fiscal year ending 31 March, a period that does not align with the calendar-year figures in NVCA's own dataset. NVCA's own Yearbook landing page attributes 2025's AI-driven capital in part to 'corporate strategics and sovereign wealth funds' without separating either group's specific dollar contribution, so this trace cannot state what share of the 2025 rebound, if any, came from investors of SoftBank's type specifically.

The decision in front of you

Editorially: a founder negotiating a late-stage round priced well above the post-2021 median should ask whether the round's size and structure resemble the concentrated, large-check pattern both documents describe, since a valuation set by one exceptionally large investor can move faster, in either direction, than the broader median the yearbook's own data shows holding comparatively steady.

• Does the round's lead investor resemble the large, concentrated check-writers this dataset associates with swings in average valuation?
• Is the valuation offered closer to the yearbook's average for the year, or to its more stable median?
• What did the same investor's own most recent disclosure say about its current pace of new investment?

A single filing from one large investor and a market-wide average from one provider are not the same kind of evidence, but read together they show a retreat and a rebound that a founder pricing a late-stage round in 2026 should not assume is finished or repeatable.