By Nicholas Walter
Salesforce Ventures, the company’s venture capital arm, has unveiled a new $500 million fund specifically for AI firms as part of Dreamforce, the company’s huge tech conference happening this week in San Francisco. This is important for several reasons. First, Salesforce Ventures increased its AI fund by $500 million in June 2023 from $250 million, bringing the total amount to $1 billion. In comparison, throughout its first 15 years following its introduction in 2009, a total of $5 billion has been deployed.
A contributing factor to San Francisco’s popularity as a hub for AI startups is Salesforce Ventures, which is one of the reasons startups from all over the world are moving there. For instance, the venture arm conducts dinners for Fortune 500 executives and its portfolio companies—essentially, potential customers—much like many other VC firms. Its impressive AI portfolio—which includes, among others, Anthropic, Hugging Face, Runway, and Together AI—may come as no surprise.
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The fund focuses on supporting high-growth businesses and innovative entrepreneurs who are reshaping the AI industry, creating disruptive innovation, and generating substantial returns while upholding Salesforce Ventures’ core values of accountability and trust. Salesforce Ventures offers access to Salesforce’s Office of Ethical and Humane Use and other specialists to assist startups in striking a balance between growth, innovation, and trust. It also connects portfolio businesses with its network of leaders within the Fortune 500.
Over two dozen AI startups, including industry leaders like Anthropic, Compere, Runway, TogetherAI, Mistral AI, and Hugging Face, have received investments from Salesforce Ventures to date. The organization’s interest in many of these businesses will be further increased by the new investments, which will offer patient capital in addition to unrivaled development prospects and industry knowledge from its enterprise ecosystem.
