Salesforce Ventures has announced a new $500 million Generative AI fund, which brings its corporate VC firm’s commitment to AI to $1 billion in less than two years. Last year, the VC arm of the cloud software giant closed $500 million for the fund focused on GenAI.
It connects portfolio companies with its ecosystem of leaders across the Fortune 500 and also helps startups balance trust, growth, and innovation through access to Salesforce’s Office of Ethical and Humane Use and other experts.
Salesforce focus on AI
Salesforce Ventures has been identifying and supporting startups with AI capabilities. The latest fund will focus specifically on companies developing smaller, more targeted AI models that are designed to offer specialised solutions to businesses and tailored to specific industries or use cases.
As per the VC firm, these smaller models have the potential to transform business operations across sectors, providing companies with the tools they need to adopt AI solutions at scale. This comes at a time when there is a growing demand for models that can deliver highly customised solutions tailored to individual business needs.
By targeting companies in the earlier stages of development, Salesforce Ventures aims to secure stakes in high-potential firms before valuations clock a rise.
Portfolio of investments
The VC arm has been instrumental in helping AI companies in the early stage grow and thrive. The fund has already deployed its initial $500 million across 24 companies, including Hugging Face, Mistral, Runway, and Anthropic, those have made significant contributions to advancing AI technologies.
“Salesforce Ventures is a leader in helping startups scale market-changing innovations in the cloud, and we’re expanding on that heritage to bring the power of AI to all parts of the enterprise,” said John Somorjai, President of Salesforce Ventures. “The first $500 million we invested in this technology has powered growth across our AI ecosystem, and we’ll continue to incorporate learnings from across our business, partners, and customers to help build the AI leaders of tomorrow.”
“The AI landscape has evolved greatly in the past year, encompassing everything from powerful LLMs to business-boosting applications — yet no enterprise will adopt AI at scale unless they trust it will deliver strong returns and avoid putting their reputation at risk,” added Paul Drews, Managing Partner of Salesforce Ventures. “Our expanded investment deepens our commitment to helping the most dynamic and expansive innovators win the market by accelerating their growth through our customer network and delivering trusted AI that earns the confidence of the biggest companies in the world. Values drive value, and we know trust and responsibility are good for the world—and good for business.”
