Salesforce Ventures Introduces $100 Million Canada Trailblazer Fund

New Fund Is Part of Salesforce’s $2 Billion Commitment to Canada; Unveiling of Fund Kicks off Salesforce World Tour Toronto and Dreampitch Competition

Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, announced that Salesforce Ventures, the company’s global corporate investment group, has launched the Canada Trailblazer Fund, a $100 million fund to invest in Canadian startups and fuel cloud innovation and customer success in the region. Salesforce Ventures has supported the Canadian startup community since 2011, investing in innovative Canadian companies such as Vidyard and LeadSift.

“There is incredible innovation happening in Canada today and we want to encourage and empower the next generation of enterprise cloud startups in the region,” said John Somorjai, EVP of Corporate Development and Salesforce Ventures at Salesforce. “Salesforce Ventures’ Canada Trailblazer Fund is a commitment to our mission to help startups grow and enable our customers to reach new levels of success.”

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“Canada is recognized as an excellent place to start and build globally competitive technology companies,” said the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Canadian Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. “Corporate initiatives such as Salesforce Ventures’ new Canada Trailblazer Fund provide valuable support to technology entrepreneurs throughout their start-and-scale journey. I congratulate Salesforce on the launch of this important new fund, and look forward to future successes as they make progress toward their goal of investing $2 billion in Canadian businesses in the next five years.”

“Salesforce Ventures is an incredibly strong partner to Canadian startups,” said Ali Asaria, CEO and founder of Tulip, a mobile platform built for next-generation retail store associates to offer a world-class omnichannel experience. “Their investment and the unique access we get to the Salesforce ecosystem has enabled us to expand our business faster and maintain that rapid pace of growth.”

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Empowering Canadian Startups through Salesforce Ventures’ Canada Trailblazer Fund

IDC forecasts that Canada’s public cloud software market will grow almost six times faster than on-premise software deployments to reach C$4.1 billion by 20191. Salesforce Ventures’ Canada Trailblazer Fund will provide funding and support to the companies driving this growth and empower entrepreneurs to deliver unique capabilities to Salesforce customers.

The first round of funding recipients include:

• Tier1CRM: A provider of cloud-based CRM solutions for the capital markets industry built on Salesforce.
  Traction Guest: A developer of cloud-based visitor management systems (VMS) that enable global enterprises to shape the workplace experience, strengthen security and leverage visitor data with its Salesforce integration.
• Tulip: A mobile application provider focused on empowering workers in retail stores. Tulip integrates with Salesforce to deliver simple-to-use apps for store associates to look up products, manage customer information, check out shoppers and personalize the customer experience.
• OSF Commerce: A top digital cloud transformation specialist focused on building multi-cloud and unified commerce projects using Salesforce.

Also Read: Salesforce Earmarks $50 Million SI Trailblazer Fund for Next-Gen Cloud Consulting Firms

Driving customer success and innovation with World Tour Toronto and Dreampitch

The unveiling of the fund kicks off Salesforce World Tour Toronto, which took place at Beanfield Centre. The Salesforce World Tour is a global roadshow where Trailblazers share how they’re using the Customer Success Platform to create connected customer experiences, learn new skills, innovate at their companies and shape the future. World Tour Toronto will feature a keynote from Salesforce CFO Mark Hawkins, specialized breakout sessions for every role and industry and live demos of cutting-edge technologies.

As part of World Tour Toronto, Salesforce Ventures will also host its first Canadian Dreampitch competition. Three early-stage Canadian startups that have built products leveraging the Salesforce Platform will pitch to a panel of expert judges and compete for an opportunity to win a $100,000 USD investment from Salesforce Ventures.

Committed to the growth and success of Canadian businesses

Salesforce recently announced its intent to invest $2 billion in its Canadian business over the next five years. More than 6,000 Canadian companies are using Salesforce to connect with their customers in new ways across sales, service, marketing, commerce and more. Additionally, Canadians have earned more than 87,000 badges on Trailhead — Salesforce’s free, gamified online learning platform — acquiring the skills needed to succeed in today’s technology-driven economy and be part of Salesforce’s flourishing ecosystem.

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