SoftBank is hemorrhaging money. Again.

SoftBank is expected to announce additional losses of billions of dollars from its two funds. The Japan-based investment conglomerate lost $27B in the previous fiscal year.

Why should we care?
SoftBank has swung from extremes—between near-bankruptcy and ludicrous extravagance—over the course of its history. After various SNAFUs affected its Vision Fund 1, the largest investment fund in history, SoftBank’s founder and CEO Masoyashi Son promised to proceed with greater caution when launching Vision Fund 2. But that diligence failed to materialize. If anything, a startup’s investment from SoftBank may now function as a red flag for investors. According to the Wall Street Journal, SoftBank employees were ordered to gloss over founders’ backgrounds and invest in a startup if at least two other top-tier venture investors backed a company as well. As Eliot Brown writes in the Journal, Vision Fund 2 “was essentially a broad bet on the future of startups.” How severely that bet becomes a persistent loss may determine whether SoftBank receives another multi-billion dollar opportunity to shape tech in its image.