Led by the venerable Masayoshi Son, SoftBank is a 35+ year old Japanese company that was largely unknown in the West until 2017 when SoftBank launched the Vision Fund. At $100B, the Vision Fund immediately dwarfed ALL other sources of venture capital around the world, both disrupting venture investing and the way the world’s most promising companies grow and scale.
When SoftBank approached us, they wanted help establishing a brand that both aligned with leadership perspectives and could hold up against harsh criticism common in the field. Like their investments, our work had to be carefully crafted with the long-term in mind.
After months of travel, stacks of notebooks, and over 100 in-depth interviews with SoftBank influencers, we worked to thread the needle of Silicon Valley venture capital, global founders, investment banking, public markets, and a 40-year-old Japanese conglomerate.
Our simple, directive positioning line, “Shared Vision, Amplified Ambition,” is a promise to founders—the fund’s most important audience.
The Vision Fund is a global organization with a distinctly future-forward orientation. For this reason, a gradient representing the sunrise—with all of the optimism and potential it symbolizes—is the graphic element upon which much of the Vision Fund’s brand is built.
Portraiture by Jake Chessum.
Working globally across London, Silicon Valley, and Tokyo, our engagement developed into a multi-year, close knit partnership. We’ve brought the brand to life through website, film, photography, hard-working presentation materials, and more.
Additional photography was built around our portfolio companies themselves. Across industries and across the globe, our images showcase all the unique ways our tech-investments touch people’s lives.
Photographed by Spencer Lowell for Plenty Unlimited Inc.
“What does it mean to be an entrepreneur in the next decade?” The answer to this question is essential to the success of the Vision Fund, so we used it as the backbone of our video series, The Long View. By posing this question to the founders within the portfolio, we were able to highlight their corporate vision in a way that showcased them as relatable individuals with dreams and aspirations—often a challenging balance to strike.
We collaborated with Revery, a Portland-based production shop to create these bite-sized glimpses into the minds of our founders.
Gabrielle Muse
Ali Hartwell
Ted Makarewicz
Martin Grasser
Lilly Archer
Jack Burnside
Carson Chang
Annalisa Swank
Vina Rostomyan
Basic - Site Development
Revery - Film Production
Jake Chessum - Portraiture Photography
Unsplash - Brand Photography
Jed Alger - Copywriting
Sarah Costello - Copywriting
Paige Faller
Maya Shetty
Led by the venerable Masayoshi Son, SoftBank is a 35+ year old Japanese company that was largely unknown in the West until 2017 when SoftBank launched the Vision Fund. At $100B, the Vision Fund immediately dwarfed ALL other sources of venture capital around the world, both disrupting venture investing and the way the world’s most promising companies grow and scale.
When SoftBank approached us, they wanted help establishing a brand that both aligned with leadership perspectives and could hold up against harsh criticism common in the field. Like their investments, our work had to be carefully crafted with the long-term in mind.
After months of travel, stacks of notebooks, and over 100 in-depth interviews with SoftBank influencers, we worked to thread the needle of Silicon Valley venture capital, global founders, investment banking, public markets, and a 40-year-old Japanese conglomerate.
Our simple, directive positioning line, “Shared Vision, Amplified Ambition,” is a promise to founders—the fund’s most important audience.
The Vision Fund is a global organization with a distinctly future-forward orientation. For this reason, a gradient representing the sunrise—with all of the optimism and potential it symbolizes—is the graphic element upon which much of the Vision Fund’s brand is built.
Portraiture by Jake Chessum.
Working globally across London, Silicon Valley, and Tokyo, our engagement developed into a multi-year, close knit partnership. We’ve brought the brand to life through website, film, photography, hard-working presentation materials, and more.
Additional photography was built around our portfolio companies themselves. Across industries and across the globe, our images showcase all the unique ways our tech-investments touch people’s lives.
Photographed by Spencer Lowell for Plenty Unlimited Inc.
“What does it mean to be an entrepreneur in the next decade?” The answer to this question is essential to the success of the Vision Fund, so we used it as the backbone of our video series, The Long View. By posing this question to the founders within the portfolio, we were able to highlight their corporate vision in a way that showcased them as relatable individuals with dreams and aspirations—often a challenging balance to strike.
We collaborated with Revery, a Portland-based production shop to create these bite-sized glimpses into the minds of our founders.
Gabrielle Muse
Ali Hartwell
Ted Makarewicz
Martin Grasser
Lilly Archer
Jack Burnside
Carson Chang
Annalisa Swank
Vina Rostomyan
Basic - Site Development
Revery - Film Production
Jake Chessum - Portraiture Photography
Unsplash - Brand Photography
Jed Alger - Copywriting
Sarah Costello - Copywriting
Paige Faller
Maya Shetty
We’re always on the lookout for
interesting projects with interesting people.
Say hello at mgrasser@gmail.com
© 2024 Martin Grasser. All rights reserved.