SoftBank Group Corp.'s Vision Fund will invest $2 billion in South Korea's Coupang, giving the e-commerce giant funds to accelerate development of new shopping and delivery services.
Founded in 2010, Coupang is South Korea's largest online retailer and sells more than 120 million items from consumer electronics to food. The Seoul-based company says that half the nation's population has downloaded its mobile app.
The deal marks another enormous bet on e-commerce for SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, who made a fortune backing Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. before it turned into China's dominant provider. SoftBank put an initial $1 billion investment into Coupang in 2015, valuing it at $5 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The valuation in the current deal is $9 billion post-money, or after the additional capital is included, the people said.
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