In a defining, end of an era move, Japanese telco giant SoftBank Group Corp. is said to be winding down its Venture Capital arm, an arm that has funded an amazing variety of startups.

According to reports, new SoftBank Chief Executive Officer Nikesh Arora has said that the company is moving away “from making a bunch of small bets on early-stage companies toward bigger investments in fewer, but more mature, businesses.”

Further, SoftBank’s Capital investment arm will no longer look to raise any new funds and that future SoftBank investments will come for the balance sheet of the parent SoftBank Group Corp.

“As we look at the future for the next tens of years, we believe that the way to preserve the long-term sustainability of SoftBank is to be large, minority shareholders of many assets. We believe that it’s less crowded in the large-check marketplace” SoftBank president Nikesh Arora told Re/code.

“We believe that it’s less crowded in the large-check marketplace,” he added, “and it’s a smaller universe of companies we have to understand and support” he added.

Existing portfolio companies

The news to wind down the fund isn’t all bad news however, with Arora committing to ongoing investments in existing companies in Softbank’s portfolio, and that’s a seriously diverse and large one, and includes among others The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, FitBit, Inc., through a second SoftBank Capital fund, which does later-stage investments.

Oddly, perhaps given the news, is that another SoftBank Capital fund dedicated to exclusively investing in startups based in New York is not facing a cut, however it’s reported to be instead being rebranded with a non-Softbank related name; the reason given is that it’s not primarily funded with funds from SoftBank, hence it’s ability to continue on under a different name without SoftBanks support.

To say SoftBank’s withdrawal from the venture capital space is sad news is an understatement; there are hundred, possibly thousands of startup founders who wouldn’t be in businesses today without SoftBank’s often generous Venture Capital support, and while there’s still plenty of money around from other VC’s, they will be sorely missed.

It’s not clear when SoftBank’s early VC arm will shut down in full, other than it’s likely to be in short shrift.

Image credit: Duncan Riley.