Matt Garratt is leaving his managing partner position at Salesforce Ventures, the strategic investment arm of US-headquartered enterprise software producer Salesforce, for a general partner position at VC firm CRV.
Salesforce hired Garratt in 2013 in a corporate development and strategy role following more than four years at technology investment firm Battery Ventures, and he helped manage the launch of Salesforce Ventures the following year as senior director of corporate development.
The firm promoted Garratt to senior vice-president and managing partner of Salesforce Ventures in 2018, two years after he featured in GCV’s 2016 Rising Stars list.
Garratt’s brief at CRV will involve beefing up its enterprise software portfolio, and the move was announced in the same week CRV and Salesforce Ventures both backed web deployment software provider Vercel’s $102m series C round.
Investments in which Garratt was involved during his time at Salesforce include Mulesoft, which ended up being bought by the company for $6.5bn; Snowflake, which currently has a $74bn market cap after floating last September; and Twilio, sitting on a $66.8bn market cap 60 times the valuation at which Salesforce Ventures invested in 2015.
Garratt said in a LinkedIn post: “I am eternally grateful for the opportunity that Salesforce and John Somorjai provided me at Salesforce and Salesforce Ventures. I never imagined what Salesforce Ventures would become.”
Somorjai, executive VP of corporate development and Salesforce Ventures, said: “A massive thank you to Matt Garratt for his leadership and contributions over his last eight-plus years at Salesforce Ventures. He has made a lasting impact, and I am grateful to have worked with him and we wish him luck in his new role.”
Salesforce Ventures has promoted senior VP Alex Kayyal to managing partner to replace Garratt. He had been head of international for the unit since August 2020 and his deals include logistics software producer Bringg, which closed a $100m series E round last week, and a $150m investment in software development platform Monday.com this month.
Photo of Matt Garratt courtesy of LinkedIn.
