TOKYO, May 13 (Reuters) - Japanese technology investor

Softbank Group believes it has an advantage over

smaller rivals because it can leverage its entire $183.6 billion

portfolio to help it build an ecosystem of firms that can employ

artificial intelligence, a top executive said on Monday.

"Because of the size of our platform, we're able to bring

those companies to see how they can utilise generative AI or

LLMs (large language models)," Navneet Govil, chief financial

officer (CFO) of SoftBank's Vision Fund investment arm, told

Reuters in an interview.

"When you have 477 portfolio companies you can facilitate

synergies, which isn't possible if you're a smaller platform,"

he said.

The Vision Fund, which upended the world of venture capital

with high conviction bets on startups such as ridesharing app

Uber ( UBER ) and shared office provider WeWork ( WEWOQ ), was hit hard

when rising interest rates and political instability hammered

valuations of growth startups in 2022.

Govil said that the Vision Fund is not yet making investment

decisions based on the potential AI ecosystem tie-ins for a

given company. The fund does measure revenue generated by

introducing its portfolio companies to one another as customers,

suppliers, or to enter new markets, particularly Japan.

The Vision Fund has brought 50 of its 477 portfolio

companies to Japan, which would not have been possible were they

acting alone, Govil said.

SoftBank has invested in comparatively few additional

companies in recent years. Plummeting tech valuations and record

investment losses from 2022 forced it to scale back new

investments and adopt stricter criteria.

The group and Vision Funds combined invested around $4

billion in each of the last two years.

In previous years the Vision Fund's investments alone had

reached around $20 billion in a year.

But $4 billion per year is still larger than other funds

similarly investing in technology startups, Govil said.