Tokyo The head of Deutsche Telekom, Timotheus Höttges, welcomed Marcelo Claure on stage with a “Give me five” in September. Höttges had just announced a capital alliance with the Japanese investment group Softbank, of which Claure is COO. Since then, the Bolivian has been in his element as a designated member of the Deutsche Telekom Supervisory Board.
At Softbank, the world’s largest investor, Claure is now responsible for large investments and operational companies. After the strategic capital alliance, which also includes joint investments in growth-hungry start-ups, the current supervisory board of the Telekom subsidiary T-Mobile can live out its original entrepreneurship and its new role of start-up hunter at the German telecommunications group.
The first fruit of the German-Japanese partnership was harvested this week by the Cologne start-up 1nce, which connects factories, elevators and thermostats. The two corporations are the largest donors in a financing round that 1nce brought in 40 million euros – a sum that must seem like change for the former company founder Claure.
As a confidante of Softbank founder Masayoshi Son, the Bolivian US citizen is now one of the most powerful investors in the global start-up world. The 50-year-old does not manage Son’s largest dream fulfillment fund, the first and second Softbank Vision Fund, which have invested well over $ 100 billion in mega start-ups. But now he’s investing more than a billion dollars a week as Son’s co-decision maker, Claure said in March on the renowned Wharton Fintech Podcast.
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It is the culmination of a special career. After studying in the USA, the football fan and today’s major investor in the Spanish second division club Girona FC first headed the business operations of the Bolivian football association in the 1990s. Then he went to the USA to start his own business.
More than three billion dollars in sales in three years
He made his breakthrough with Brightstar, which first sold used cell phones from the USA to Latin America and later also took over the management of supply chains. The business ideas turned out to be a complete success. “Many did not understand how we could build a company with more than three billion dollars in sales in three years,” recalls Claure in the podcast. Half of the market thought the money came from money laundering and drug trafficking. “The time was very painful.”
But Claure’s success caught the attention of the Japanese son, who as a start-up founder has a weakness for entrepreneurial types. Without further ado, he bought Brightstar to take advantage of Claure’s talents. “He may look like a bandit, but he’s a wonderful guy,” Son described his new purchase, which is two heads taller than the investor legend from Japan.
This made Claure interesting for the Japan-based analyst Kirk Boodry, the founder of Redex Research. “He’s a good leader with unique skills,” says Boodry Claure’s assessment of Brightstar’s success. “Son has enough confidence that he has entrusted him with running Softbank subsidiaries that have been in trouble.”
His first major work for Softbank was the reorganization of Sprint, which he crowned this year with the merger with T-Mobile US.
(Photo: Getty Images)
Claure’s first major work for Son was the redevelopment of Sprint, which he crowned this year with the merger with T-Mobile US. “His time there should therefore be counted as a success,” says Boodry. After that, Son hates his adjutant to rescue the stumbling office supplier Wework, of which Claure is currently chairman of the board of directors.
But he was unable to influence the Vision Fund because, according to experts, he has a close enmity with the Vision Fund boss Rajeev Misra. However, Softbank founder Son knows how to retain talent through the allocation of a lot of decision-making power and money.
Without further ado, he offered the ambitious Claure to train him as a major global investor. “Masa told me that I was a good entrepreneur and manager, but a miserable investor,” Claure likes to express his point of view in interviews. Masa is short for Masayoshi. And so Son invited the Bolivian to learn the craft personally from the master in Tokyo.
Five billion dollars in seed capital from Masayoshi Son
When Claure came up in 2019 with the idea of investing in start-ups in Latin America, Son entrusted him with five billion dollars in start-up capital, which Claure has so far successfully increased. Next he received a special start-up fund for colored people in the USA to accelerate the growth of this socially disadvantaged founding class. Because from his own experience he knows how difficult it is.
Another $ 3 billion for the second Latin American fund followed in September. But the sporty entrepreneur and investor, who has also run a marathon, apparently feels at home in Germany too. In August he posted photos of himself at Tegernsee on Instagram – with a racing bike and cows chewing with relish. “He seems happy with what he’s doing,” says analyst Boodry, “and his relationship with Masa Son is so strong that he probably won’t go anywhere.”
More: Alliance with the world’s largest tech investor: What Deutsche Telekom is now planning with Softbank in the back