Salesforce Ventures launches $50 million Australia Trailblazer Fund to empower Australian startups in the Salesforce ecosystem

Salesforce, through its global corporate investment arm, Salesforce Ventures, yesterday launched new $50 million fund to empower Australian startups in the Salesforce ecosystem. The new fund, which is called the Australia Trailblazer Fund, will help Australian startups to scale, invest in innovation and drive customer success. The unveiling of the fund is part of Salesforce World Tour Sydney. Salesforce is a tech powerhouse and the global leader and provider of customer relationship management (CRM) software.

The fund will also help Salesforce Ventures deepens its commitment to the region by investing in local innovation and inspiring Australian entrepreneurs to create next generation technology that drives customer success across industries. According to Startup Muster1, an Australian research firm that measures and publishes the progress, challenges, and opportunities within the Australian startup ecosystem, nearly half of Australian startups are actively trying to raise funds, and 45 percent identify as delivering Software as a Service (SaaS) products. If these startups can secure financing and scale, 25 percent of the Australian economy is likely to be directly impacted by software by 2025, which equates to $524 billion of GDP, according to StartupAUS2.

Since its inception in 2012, Salesforce Ventures has been investing in innovative startups in Australia, such as Arxxus, Autopilot, Bugcrowd, Practifi, Socialsuite and Sqware Peg.

• Arxxus: A leading innovative and independent Salesforce services partner with a focus on APAC, Arxxus leverages a cloud-first agile delivery methodology to ensure customer success on every engagement. They specialise in industry-leading Salesforce solutions across a range of verticals including: government, real estate and Not For Profit.
• Bugcrowd: A leading crowdsourced security company with an award-winning platform that combines actionable, contextual intelligence to help leading organizations solve security challenges, protect customers, and make the digitally connected world a safer place.
• Sqware Peg: One of Australia’s first Salesforce partners and an established leader in advisory across all Salesforce solutions. Recently acquired by Simplus, a Platinum Salesforce Partner and a leader in Quote-to-Cash implementations, these two key portfolio companies have come together to create a multi-regional consultancy to support Salesforce customers.

Commenting on the fund, John Somorjai, EVP of Corporate Development and Salesforce Ventures said: “Digital transformation is impacting businesses around the world and companies need to innovate faster and smarter to meet customer expectations today.” He also added, “Salesforce Ventures recognises the incredible opportunity to invest in Australian entrepreneurs to create world-class startups that will grow the opportunity within the Salesforce ecosystem and deliver customer success.”

“Initiatives such as Salesforce Ventures’ new $50 million Australia Trailblazer Fund provide the valuable support and investment needed for startups to scale, employ Australians, and see their great ideas become great businesses,” said Simon Birmingham, Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. “I congratulate Salesforce on its commitment to Australia with the launch of this new fund, and look forward to seeing the home grown startups it supports scale and succeed at home and internationally.”

“It fills me with pride to see Salesforce stepping up into my home country like this. The establishment of Salesforce Ventures in Australia speaks volumes of the calibre of Australian entrepreneurs, as well as their forward-looking attitude,” said Casey Ellis, Chairman, Founder & CTO of Bugcrowd. “Salesforce Ventures was an early investor in Bugcrowd, and is continuing to take to the global market. Alongside the capital, this move will deepen the availability of Salesforce’s considerable technical and partnership resources to Australian entrepreneurs, which will help fuel the process of supporting Australia’s talent and accelerate local innovations into the global market.”

“We’re excited by the opportunity to fuel Australia’s startup ecosystem. We see significant opportunity through Salesforce Ventures to help Australia’s smartest entrepreneurs and best business ideas succeed here and on the world stage,” said Miguel Milano, President, International at Salesforce.