Uber has significant growth opportunities in the future, even in more developed markets, the CEO of the SoftBank Vision Fund, the ride-hailing app's biggest investor, told CNBC Monday, backing its plan for an initial public offering (IPO) by 2019.
Speaking in November, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi stated that the entire board at his firm want an IPO, with CEO Khosrowshahi himself saying that the "numbers support it." He added that there was no pressure from any investors for the company to go public.
Rajeev Misra, the CEO of SoftBank Vision Fund, said "of course" when asked whether he would like to see an Uber IPO by 2019. Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, he said he was happy with the job that Khosrowshahi was doing and the regulatory progress that was being made.
"He is doing an amazing job, we are very happy with Dara," Misra told CNBC.
SoftBank Vision Fund is a $100 billion fund that is part of the wider SoftBank Group, which took a stake in Uber earlier this year, valuing the U.S. ride-hailing firm at $48 billion. The Japanese firm is now the largest stakeholder in Uber.
Misra talked up the growth potential of Uber and said that it would continue being a global company, despite a report from CNBC earlier this year suggesting it might sell its Southeast Asia business to Singapore's Grab. Misra did not comment directly on the report, but said that the business can continue to grow in areas from food delivery to taxi services.
"Uber is a global company present everywhere but China … and they remain a global company … If there is some fine tuning in certain regions where they decide to go after it, that will happen over time," Misra told CNBC.
"But I believe the future of Uber is not just transportation, but also food delivery, also insurance, car leasing, all kinds of ancillary businesses globally and that's what the platform has to do."
