Salesforce Kicks Off $100 Million IoE Mobile App, Connected Devices Fund

In a nod to the burgeoning Internet of Everything (IoE), CRM provider Salesforce.com (CRM) has opened a $100 million fund to underwrite mobile app and connected device startups building on the company’s Salesforce1 platform.

The Salesforce1 Fund, operated through the vendor’s Salesforce Ventures investment unit, is aiming at what Salesforce has coined the Internet of Customers, referring to technology that helps companies connect with their customers in new ways. Salesforce said it already has invested in DocuSign, i.am+, InsideSales.com and Skuid, although it declined to provide any details on the extent of its investments in those companies.

The initiative is Salesforce.com’s first dedicated investment funding effort. TechCrunch, which chronicles such things, reported that as of July 31, Salesforce.com this year had invested some $109 million in private companies—a 42 percent spike in activity from the $77 million it totaled only seven months earlier. Overall, the company has invested $215 million in privately held companies.

John Somorjai, Salesforce.com Corporate Development and Strategy executive vice president, told TechCrunch that the Salesforce1 Fund formalizes the company’s investment activities from the past few years.

“We have a really deep pipeline of other Salesforce1 investments that we’ll be announcing in the next few weeks,” he said. “We see a huge opportunity as mobile adoption in the enterprise gets bigger and bigger.”

Somorjai told TechCrunch that the fund’s $100 million should suffice for a number of years. He didn’t provide any details on investment amounts or criteria to qualify but said selected companies are confined to one capital infusion and the funding isn't reserved only for startups.

DocuSign chief executive Keith Krach, whose company’s Digital Transaction Management (DTM) platform enables customers to transact on any mobile device from within Salesforce1, said the Salesforce capital investment “gives us more than just funding, we’ve got an inside track to the Salesforce ecosystem.”