Former LinkedIn executive Deep Nishar has joined Softbank (TYO:9984) as MD of investments, helping the Japanese telco in its hunt for M&A to diversify overseas.
Nishar had been SVP of products and user experience at LinkedIn since 2009, and has seen the…
Former LinkedIn executive Deep Nishar has joined Softbank (TYO:9984) as MD of investments, helping the Japanese telco in its hunt for M&A to diversify overseas.
Nishar had been SVP of products and user experience at LinkedIn since 2009, and has seen the social network’s revenue grow from US$78m to US$2.2bn during his tenure.
He joined the site from Google, where he was senior director of products for Asia Pacific and played a key role in implementing its mobile business globally.
Softbank has been making a number of internet-related investments recently as it seeks to expand internationally amid a difficult economic climate in Japan.
The conglomerate confirmed a US$1bn investment in Korea’s largest online retailer earlier this month for a stake reported to be about 20%.
Other recent acquisitions include taxi hailing app operators in China and India, an Indonesian e-commerce firm, and an Indian real estate platform called housing.com.
The group became housing.com’s largest investor in December with a US$90m investment. The start-up’s co-founder and CEO Rahul Yadav was reportedly fired yesterday over his controversial attitude to investors, partners and the media.
