- General
- October 6, 2020
- 4 minutes read
Salesforce Debuts $100M Impact Fund
Marc R. Benioff, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Salesforce. Photo credit: World Economic Forum / Ben Hider, licensed under Creative…
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| Marc R. Benioff, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Salesforce.
Photo credit: World Economic Forum / Ben Hider, licensed under Creative Commons
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Salesforce Ventures, the corporate venture arm of cloud software giant Salesforce, has debuted a second ‘Impact’ venture capital fund, this time a $100 million one, that’ll invest in cloud companies with a social dynamic. The new $100 million Impact Fund, which succeeds a previous $50 million one, will target investments in cloud companies addressing current pressing issues such as climate action, education and reskilling, and the likes, Salesforce says.
Salesforce Ventures launched its first $50 million Impact Fund in 2017 and has so far backed over 25 startups from that fund. Among companies backed by that fund include Andela, an American company that recruits and trains software developers across Africa; Ellevest, a digital investing platform for women; FutureFuel, a student debt advisory and management platform; and Flutterwave, an African payments upstart. Salesforce is apparently now looking to make a new batch of social investments with double the amount of its previous Impact Fund.
The Salesforce Impact Fund is itself a smaller unit housed under the main Salesforce Ventures, which is a major and prolific investor in technology companies. Since its founding in 2009, Salesforce Ventures has served as the official corporate investment arm of Salesforce and has backed dozens of companies, with many exits via acquisitions and public offerings to show. Among notable companies Salesforce Ventures has bet on include Stripe, Twilio, Optimizely, Dropbox, Zoom, Box, Airwallex, Gusto, Evernote, Automattic, and Blend. One of the venture fund’s recent notable investments was a $100 million bet on video communications company Zoom, an investment that it wholly exited with significant profit after grabbing its stake merely on the cusp of the company’s public listing and before a coronavirus pandemic that sent Zoom’s stock soaring due to outsized adoption.
