Salesforce Ventures Brings Australian Startups $50M In New Fund

March 5, 2019

Natasha Mascarenhas

Salesforce Ventures that it is launching its fourth country-specific fund, this time to boost its involvement within Australia鈥檚 startup community. The aptly-named Australian Trailblazer Fund will invest $50 million into the early-stage space. 1

This fund tops off Australia-specific efforts Salesforce has been making since 2012, when it first started investing in the space. The company has invested in Australia鈥檚 , and , and Bugcrowd, to name a few.

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Bugcrowd founder said in that 鈥渢he establishment of Salesforce Ventures in Australia speaks volumes of the calibre of Australian entrepreneurs, as well as their forward-looking attitude.鈥�

We haven鈥檛 written too much about Australian startups, but we鈥檇 love to change that (shoot me a note at natasha@crunchbase.com)

Let me give you some background on the startup scene Down Under. About half of Australian startups are actively trying to raise funds, according to . 听So far in 2019, top deals include a mortgage lending startup raising $40 million in a venture round led by ANZ, and , a 3D machine vision systems manufacturer that raised a $32 million Series A.

Salesforce鈥檚 bet on Australia鈥檚 early-stage tech market makes sense as other groups are already investing into the region. Like government initiative , which says on its website that it will offer $57 million in funding to 鈥渉elp start-ups and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in regional NSW succeed and create more local jobs in regional communities across the State.鈥�

Part of its efforts are visible in its relatively new startup incubator, the Sydney Startup Hub. Last month it celebrated its first anniversary and shared that its 480 startups raised over $182 million in the past year. 听NSW plans to invest $35 million in the hub over the next 5 years, a.

In short, Salesforce Ventures鈥� new fund has an audience.

Also notable: the fund is comparatively less than the other international launches Salesforce Ventures has made in the past two years: in December it launched a $100 million fund for Japan and in May it launched a $100 million fund for Canada.

Here鈥檚 the vintage, and size of the known Salesforce Ventures Funds:

Update, 3/08/2019: Salesforce reached out to 小蓝视频色情网页版 News with a comment explaining the discrepancy in fund sizes between Australia, and previous international venture funds. Here is a statement from Matt Garratt, managing partner at听Salesforce听痴别苍迟耻谤别蝉:

础迟听Salesforce听Ventures, we have made some great investments in Australia, but the Australia Trailblazer Fund is really kick starting our focused investment in the country. In EMEA, Canada and Japan, we had already made several investments in those countries and had an established presence. For instance we had been investing in Japan for seven years before launching a fund. We sized the fund to reflect this.听

听

We are excited to support Australian entrepreneurs, and continue our investment in the country, and beyond in the broader APAC region.听Salesforce听Ventures is one of the only U.S. VCs with a dedicated Australian-specific fund 鈥� a $50m USD fund is in the top 25 VC funds for Australia. We also believe that relocating one of our most tenured team members, Rob Keith, reflects our commitment to the region

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