SoftBank Makes $500 Million Bet On Mortgage Market With Investment In Better.com

Better.com has gotten a valuation boost and an injection of capital from SoftBank Group Corp SFTBY SFTBF.

• SoftBank, the Japan-based conglomerate run by Son Masayoshi and manager of the $100 billion Vision Fund, is investing $500 million in Better.com, a consumer mortgage lending site, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
• The investment is putting a a valuation of about $6 billion on Better, according to WSJ, which cited unnamed sources.
• That's a 50% step up from the $4 billion valuation in the company's Series D round last November, when the company raised $200 million, according to TechCrunch.
• Better.com extended $25 billion in loans last year and chalked up $14 billion in the first quarter of this year, according to WSJ.
• The homebuying market has been hot amid the pandemic, with Rocket Companies RKT going public in an August IPO, followed by competitor United Wholesale Mortgage taking the SPAC route to going public, now trading as UWM Holdings Corp UWMC.
• Son wants to invest in more fast-growing, pre-IPO companies, and WSJ said.
• Better.com CEO and co-founder Vishal Garg is keeping his shares as part of the deal, and SoftBank agreed to give all of its voting rights to Garg, the newspaper reported.
• Better.com is moving toward an IPO, though no official plans have been announced, TechCrunch reported.
• The tally of Better.com's fundraising now comes to a total of more than $900 million, with Goldman Sachs, Kleiner Perkins, American Express, Activant Capital and Citi, among the other investors, according to TechCrunch.