Salesforce founder Marc Benioff
Salesforce Ventures, the investment arm of the enterprise tech giant, on Monday said it’s committing another $500 million to investing in generative AI ventures, bringing its total earmarked funding for AI startups to $1 billion in the last year and a half, Salesforce exclusively told Forbes.
The money is going to the firm’s Generative AI fund, which first debuted in March 2023, months after the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT touched off a global AI phenomenon in late 2022. At the time, Salesforce committed $250 million to the fund, before upping it to $500 million three months later. Now Salesforce is doubling the amount once again.
“We went through the $250 million really, really fast,” John Somorjai, president of Salesforce Ventures, told Forbes. “In 18 months, we've gone through the full $500 million.”
Through the fund, Salesforce has quietly amassed a portfolio of some of the industry’s heaviest hitters,........