Cloud enterprise software provider Salesforce committed $100m yesterday to a new fund called Salesforce Platform Fund that will back companies developing products on its platform.
Salesforce Platform Fund will invest in startups that are building apps or components on the Salesforce platform, and the company’s corporate venturing unit, Salesforce Ventures, will look to partner venture capital firms to seek out investment targets.
The fund was announced in conjunction with the Salesforce AppExchange Partner Program, which will make it easier to build, promote and sell intelligent apps on the company’s AppExchange marketplace.
In addition to its investments through Salesforce Ventures, the corporate has formed several specialist funds to help build out its ecosystem.
The latest, the $50m Lightning Fund, was launched in June 2016 to invest in users of Salesforce’s Lightning app development platform, and has now been fully deployed. The company also ploughed $100m into the Salesforce1 Fund in 2014 to back up its Salesforce1 Platform.