Salesforce Ventures Doubles Down On AI Investments

Three months after launching it, Salesforce Ventures — Salesforce’s venture arm —  announced it will double the size of its Generative AI Fund to $500 million.

In March, Salesforce Ventures 1 said it would launch a new $250 million generative AI fund that will look at promising generative AI startups. The firm announced at TrailblazerDX it will initially invest in four AI companies — Anthropic, Cohere, Hearth.AI and you.com.

Since then, the venture arm of the CRM giant also has made additional AI investments in Humane and Tribble — and obviously see there is much more potential in AI than only $250 million can cover.

“We are already seeing AI change the way the world works, and we’re excited to build on the momentum of our Generative AI Fund,” Paul Drews, managing partner at Salesforce Ventures, said in a release. “Expanding our Generative AI Fund enables us to work with even more entrepreneurs who are accelerating the development of transformative AI solutions for the enterprise, and we are excited to support the next generation of innovative founders.”

Corporate investments

Salesforce and Salesforce Ventures are among several big tech companies and corporate venture arms that have been placing AI bets for several years — although those deals have become more expensive.

Salesforce Ventures has taken part in more than 50 deals that involved AI-related startups since the start of 2019, per Crunchbase data.

This year, the venture arm has made four deals, including participating in Anthropic’s recent big raise. It also led Cohere’s huge $250 million round.

Salesforce Ventures’ deals also show the rising price to invest in AI-related startups. While the venture arm made 10 investments in deals that totaled $736 million last year, the four deals this year have totaled $705 million.

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Illustration: Dom Guzman