Apple confirms $1B investment in SoftBank’s $100B Vision Fund

Following reports in recent weeks that Apple held talks regarding a potential investment in Softbank’s $100bn technology fund, today the company confirmed that it will indeed invest $1 billion into the project known as the “Softbank Vision Fund.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple confirmed the investment today and also offered a statement provided by company spokesperson Kristin Huguet. In the statement, the company says it thinks the investment will help “speed the development of technologies which may be strategically important to Apple.”

“We believe their new fund will speed the development of technologies which may be strategically important to Apple.” She added Apple has worked with the Japanese telecom company for many years.

Originally announced back in October, SoftBank projects it will raise around $100 billion towards the Vision Fund. While a significant amount of money, Apple’s $1B investment is much less than a reported $25 billion coming from SoftBank and an additional $45 billion from Saudi Arabia’s government.

Following reports of Apple’s interest in the project back in December, we noted that President-elect Donald Trump announced the same month that Softbank will use about half of the money, around $50 billion, to invest in American businesses.

The investment is certainly not a common one for Apple as a company that doesn’t have a history of investing in venture capital funds, but that doesn’t mean it’s been shy with spending some of its $200 billion cash reserve on strategic investments. It notably invested $1 billion into Chinese ride-share firm Didi Chuxing.