 Thank you so much for joining us great to be here second year. I've been a slash so happy to be back So today we are talking about corporate venturing I think it's really important for the benefit of everyone here Could you just give us an up-to-date definition of what exactly corporate venturing is and what's what's the kind of level of scale That you're out at the moment. So I mean the the general definition of corporate venturing is Investment with the strategic goal I can't we can talk more about what that means For Salesforce, but we've been doing this for about nine years I've been at Salesforce for a little over five and we have over 230 portfolio companies globally across 18 countries we have all investment professionals in London and Japan, San Francisco and Yeah, we have about up over a billion on the balance sheet that we've invested So we've we've been very active and you've had a number of successes already Tell me about some of the companies you've had that I'm sure many people here will know we've been very fortunate We've invested in a lot of good companies. I think they announced some but we had a number of IPOs this year We've had 15 in total. We've had 60 M&A activities But mule soft docuSign and a plan Twilio hub spot So we've we've been very fortunate to invest in a number of fantastic companies and what sort of stage What kind of level do you get involved in these companies? We're pretty broad in terms of stage But we typically our first investment that we make is a series a series B company But we can go all the way to our first investment when Twilio was pre IPO But the way we think about it is We're investing kind of at the stage when they're when you're at a company and you're thinking about who's the right partner for me And you have a product you're in market and you're starting to see for us You see Salesforce as a viable partner Customers are asking for product integrations. So that's the stage where we get involved So sometimes we'll do seed but typically not and do you see yourselves as complimentary to venture capital and other funding? Absolutely, so typically we're not leading investments. We invest alongside all of the leading venture capital firms We work with you on an event with best summer venture partners that we work with Excel and Sequoia And many of the leading venture capital firms and so they like having us in Because we're able to help provide some additional scale and growth to the business and help them navigate sales force So if there's if there's anyone out here today who's interested in actually exploring a corporate venturing option with someone like sales force Just walk me through the process. How does it how does it start? How's the conversation? Sure? It's you know, it's not too dissimilar to typical institutional venture capital But I'd say the different thing is is You know if you're thinking about working with a large company and so a lot of the advice I'll say is like What are the best practices for for working with large companies if you're a if you're a startup How do you want to get noticed by by someone who's going to be a partner? And the first thing is this really you're kind of selling them to a certain extent being able to tell that story If you can come in and say here's the mutual customers. We have here's what our product does We think this will really augment your solution and make your customers happier And that's that's really the lens that we look at is how are we going to make a by working together make our customers more successful? So if you can tell that story we can help augment that and drive greater product integration and get greater line But it's really coming in and having that notion of how you know coming in is really with the mindset How can how can we help you and your customers? It really is a mutual relationship It is on both sides mutual relationship and how much physical Interaction do you have is it you are you moving into an accelerator or is it just keeping in touch? How does it work day-to-day? So there's various phases. So the first stage is It's investment stage and that's where for for every investment We have we have a general manager or someone who runs product and so we start really with with the product integration Again very much a customer-centric approach and we think about how do we you know the nature of Salesforce? It's a platform company companies can integrate through app exchange or they can Build on our platform and so we think about how how can you have those solutions that are really gonna gonna? Augment customers so that's it's really starts with product And then we enable them in the ecosystem And then we think more about the tactical technical integration And then there's things that we do on the go-to-market side and enable them in the market play after that So I want to move the conversation on to Europe because I know you spent a lot of time Across your year coming in and out of you've been to slush before yes over to London. Yes Europe is a very different landscape compared to the valley where you were probably based in San Francisco What trends are you seeing at the moment in Europe that are making you excited from your investor perspective? I think just generally we're seeing a lot of really good enterprise technology I've been coming to Europe actively for about five years and we're seeing in each of the countries we're going We're just seeing a tremendous amount of enterprise companies Particularly in machine learning AI Some of the industry verticals financial services particularly in London So I think just overall and and even in the US outside of the valley I think you're seeing a lot of Enterprise companies really pop up and there's a lot of viable startup hubs, you know outside of California in the Silicon Valley So that's been really encouraging. Is there anywhere in Europe that you'd particularly Point towards as an area of excitement for you geographically It depends on on what we're looking for But you know, we've made three investments in the Nordics. We made one in Finland The company was was acquired not too long ago We've been spending a lot of time in France a lot of time in Germany a lot of time in UK So it's all the way we think about it. We follow where we have where do we have our largest customers? And that's that tends to be where we invest and how do you find these startups? Are they coming to you or you finding them well? So I'm fortunate we have an amazing head of Amia who's here Alex Kaol and he runs he runs our Amia He's he's local based. Well, he's based in London. So but it's a combination of a lot of VCs will bring us companies You know out meeting with companies coming to conferences like this meeting with startups the whole time. We're here. Yeah Yeah, and what would you say culturally other differences? You see you've had five years of coming between the Valley and Europe What would you say stands out or is different to working with startups here? I would say very specific to to Finland the startups are very Transparent and very honest with exactly what they can and can't do whereas in Silicon Valley They tend to stretch the truth a little bit a little bit more hustling in the valley You could call the hustles a hustles a good word for it There's probably a balance but but you know they'll say well We're the number two player this other player They beat us because they have better sales and marketing like just brutally honest, which you never see that in the valley Yeah, I think I've in my own experience as someone who's covered this area for over a decade. It is interesting so many parts of Europe I think we're more humble and sometimes we don't we don't puff ourselves up enough You know, we're not gonna you know I've seen English people trying to do fundraising and they'd be like I'm so sorry I'm sorry for asking for money like I'm from not from California. I grew up in Kentucky kind of the South meets the Midwest and it's a similar mentality. It's like, yeah, not as not as I guess as they say All hat no cattle is is expression that wonderful not in California. That's more of a Texas term So do you think it's a refreshing change than actually that honesty? I think that's a really interesting point They're not being afraid to say the on number two in the market. Yeah. I mean, I think so Yeah, it is it is And what what's on the outlook for you for the rest of the year and in terms of you mentioned AI and machine learning Are there any other areas that you think are important to Salesforce ventures? So we do spend a lot of time on industry verticals financial services healthcare life sciences That that's that's that's been a tremendous growth area We've been we launched an impact fund last year and it's almost like a different industry vertical We've had our the nonprofit side of Salesforce and investing in NGOs Universities higher ed and and that continues to grow and I think you're just sort of seeing enterprise software Becoming more dispersed. We're looking still a decent amount at at AR VR technologies It's still very early. I feel like I have to say blockchain. We've dabbled in blockchain a little bit, but the Have you got blockchain fatigue? No, I haven't really like I haven't dived in it feels like from from an enterprise standpoint I think we're pretty early in that cycle and that's that's where I think why AI and machine learning is really interesting because you're at a point now where You don't have to have a massive team of data sciences to be able to do this platforms are delivering it many of the companies here are Delivering that through a pretty readily consumable platform We have our Einstein platform. So if you want to do AI machine learning with CRM data You can use our Einstein you can build an application and build that in and so again You're taking you're abstracting away some of the complexity But then alongside that we're also seeing a lot of really interesting things to help sort of not the nerdiest and geekiest of the data science Do more data science he stuff Matt manage data science cataloging it Joining data together. So I think a lot of that stuff is getting More it's becoming simpler and more available to to to the average developer as opposed to like a hardcore data scientist And I want to touch a little bit more on that that relationship between a corporate and a startup So as I think they mentioned in the introduction, I had a startup myself I've been based in a corporate accelerator and I think being based there for two years among other startups. I think it's a Very interesting in my own experience in London that some there are some corporates who see it as very short-termists There are some startups who think that moving into a corporate accelerator equals instant contracts And you know, you're going to yeah, that's a customer for life Like let's let's talk a little bit about what the reality is what is a good example for you So I mean I think this is what we we're talking about before is is you have to treat So when you're coming and you want to work with a large company if you're the small company You have to treat it like it's your first large enterprise sales deal You have to treat it like a sales process So you have to come in you need to be able to sell the value. Why should they work with you? I think it's key. I think it's things like you know, you can't you can't take on And so what that means is you just have you have to apply a lot of resources To it. It just doesn't it just doesn't come it just doesn't work You have to put a lot of a lot of energy into it to really make it work And in some ways it's a pay it forward a little bit And so you can tick through all the things that that means but from a from a resourcing and staffing I mean if you're serious about a partnership You should have you know, at least someone who's 25 50% of their job is like this partner And again, don't have a whole bunch of partners out of the gate pick one or two You need to think about how are you how are you positioning your product alongside them? And it's an iterative cycle you need to make sure that you know the the salespeople the solution engineers The product people they understand how your product fits with theirs and it's not it's in its position properly As a CEO you should you know You can't just hand that relationship off and let your BD person manage it They could they could do a lot of it, but if it's a really important relationship, you know You need to follow up and nurture it again It's like once you sell to an account you need to follow up you need to try and continually upsell upsell upsell And and these are very dynamic Relationships and so the person that brought you in who you may have the partner partner with that person may leave And so you want to make sure that you know you have all the touch points within the company And when you mentioned dynamic relationships and something I know so well from my own experience Startups run at one pace bigger companies run at another. How are you going to balance that difference in speed and execution? I mean the company's a it's a slow-moving battleship and so you just it's again It's just like sort of making that first sale You got to just keep chipping away chipping away chipping away and and then you know Once you once you get that partnership and once you get that in you just have to keep working it And I guess it's a lot about culture really as well. It is it is about it is about culture You have to you have to understand The company you have to understand what your value is to the company What's important to the company that you're working with and it's going to be different for each company Yeah, and I guess it's like about keeping that communication open. Yes managing those expectations as well Yes, very much so very much. So can you share any like great examples of where relationships have really grown and blossomed? Yeah so I can start with with big ones and small ones because we we span the gamut of And so we're one that probably everyone knows as a company Twilio And it's a it's a API communication layer and we we invested in partnered with them Kind of in their last round before IPO and now that's like the fabric for all of our kind of communication where we're doing Doing any sort of inbound an outbound telephony. That's been that's been for like sales and service use cases That's been phenomenally successful We've been a we were an early investor in mule soft, which is Integration layer was a billion. Well, we ended up acquiring it but it was a public company as well And and you know, that was more of we work together and with with customers Maybe another good example is a company that's in the retail space Narvar and what they do is they give you that and we partnered with them kind of in there, you know a little bit early in this in the cycle of that company and they they deliver a experience like if you're like at Amazon if you're gonna order a package and you know like If I order if I use this delivery service and I pay this much it'll be here by this date and And then the notifications of when you're gonna get your package So you don't have to you don't have to bounce out to the carrier whether it's FedEx or UPS You can kind of keep that experience all within Your your e-commerce application and so we provide an e-commerce Platform and so they get in that's this company where there's like really clear Product integration and and that's another one that we've worked with and I guess as part of your role You're out there meeting startups from time to time Engaging with them. Can you just just paint the picture for me? What is a dream first meeting with a startup? What what what words do you want to hear? Here's your mutual customers. Here's how we're thinking about Build integrating in your product. We think we would be a fit for you know Product a with inside sales force product B with inside sales force product C And we think this is gonna make both of our customers a lot more successful That's kind of the first thing and then once once we kind of check that then we want to like meteoric growth great CEO all the stuff That a traditional Institutional venture capitalist would want to see but so we we kind of want to see both of those things And can I flip that around and turn it and then what what do you not want to hear? What what's your turn off? Well, it's kind of what you were saying is like I think a lot of companies will come to Corporate whether it's a VC or a corporate and to say hey, you know, we do this really cool stuff How can you how can you grow my business like we're really cool? And so they sort of come in and think that you know that as a small company You're gonna be like the highest priority right away, and we're gonna take you and start marching you into all of the accounts So it's really I think there's a a realism that needs to be baked in that says, you know, I'm committed I'm gonna make this relationship work. I'm gonna make this partnership successful and what's interesting is one of the things I found is That those CEOs that are good at partnering and navigating relationships With large companies because if you think about it, it's a pretty complicated Relationship to manage you need to know how to speak to marketing, you know speak to product to sales You need to know how much time to spend with who who's the right people are you talking to the right decision makers? It's a very complex relationship And I've seen consistently those CEOs that do that the best if you say the top 25 percent 10 percent They're also the best portfolio companies. They're it's a very clear sign of a good CEO making it sound a bit like a marriage or you know like it I mean all these all these partnerships are marriage is the one way or the other Well, what's been the most memorable one memorable one for you personally the most memorable partnership for me personally? Let me think you know, it's it's always hard to To pick pick one out favorites. I would say You know one of the ones that was one of one of my first investments that sales force was was mule soft and You know, they weren't a super small company at the time, but you know, they went on again to be a multi-billion dollar Public company incredibly successful company by their own right. We ended up acquiring them for Multiple billions and it's been a very successful acquisition. And so that one is and and the CEO I did wasn't before but the CEO Greg shot happens to live down the street from me as well So I ride with him to work now sometimes but so that one was was memorable on multiple dimensions and Tell me a bit more about Europe as well Is there anything that you expect to see in the next 12 months looking ahead into the future in terms of corporate? Relationships and startups you could you point to any other great examples from other corporate venture arms? So the first question was what are examples of if I've where do you think the trend is at the moment with corporate? Yeah, well, I mean I think in Europe specifically You know we talked about some of the trends. I think Europe tends to be ahead in GDPR and privacy and security But some of the trends in in corporate venturing. It's it's becoming an increasingly important part of Overall capital because they think so many businesses we see this that that everyone's going through this sort of digital Transformation and so you typically think of like companies like Netflix coming in and disrupting a company like blockbuster I don't know maybe blockbusters. Okay But but what you also see is that on the enterprise side can you know sort of legacy businesses? Those that adopt technology first and adopt it well They create that same sort of digital divide between their their competitors as well And you see them being rewarded in the stock market for it And so I think for that reason a lot of these companies are trying to figure out like how do I get my head around being? You know, I don't want to say every business is a tech company because that's I don't think that's true But I think every business is trying to become like a sort of a tech forward or very much a tech enabled business And so I think as part of that corporate venturing is is playing an increasingly important role a lot of people I've heard say that European startups aren't ambitious enough. We're not thinking about, you know Global ambitions are huge going over to the US and entering the market. Would you agree? I think you see that sometimes less and less And I think that's one of the interesting things is that you see a lot of startups Particularly in the enterprise side will start in Europe and then and then come to the US when they're gonna raise a series a series B I think that's one of the I don't say challenge. It's it's actually becoming a great. I think it's very attractive for us and attractive asset because Maintaining and keeping talent in the in the Bay Area is really really challenging now And so I you know, I never thought that having an R&D team in France would be you know More economical than having one in the US, but it's it's becoming the case Yeah, and so I think that from that standpoint I mean you're seeing like look there's a number of very ambitious companies In Europe and and I think that trend's only gonna continue and would you realistically would you consider? Partnering with a company that let's say it's real addressable market size. It's just the Nordic somewhere as small as that In some rare cases we on the services side We we have a lot in the past, but no, I think we're typically when we're investing in companies. We want to see them be able to You know, sometimes we'll invest in company that there might be comparable And one's very much focused on Europe broadly on the other ones focused on North America We're fine with that if it's just kind of like a very regional it gets harder It's it's harder for those businesses to really grow and have a substantial impact As you said, it's it's you're looking at places where your customers already are and it's about fusing those two things together Right and the flip side is is that if there's another company that's more ambitious That's you know based in in in France and they they want to dominate all of Europe They're gonna end up being a better company than the one that's you know You know based in Estonia and only wants to service Estonia Yeah, and we're just coming up to our last few seconds actually But I think for the benefit of people who are here Could you tell them how you would like to be approached and how you people could start a relationship with Salesforce? How should they start that? So it kind of as I mentioned is is being able to Just like you would want someone to approach you you would want them to be familiar with who you are what you do Kind of investments you've made in the past how you operate You know do your homework up front and then sort of come in with saying you know Anytime I've tried to get a job or I've tried to sell something you you always want to come in with that You know, how can I help you? Approach I think that's a very humble and great way to to start out That's that that's what I would do if whenever I'm approaching if you know when I'm trying to sell into a startup And it's a company that doesn't need our capital That's that that's the thing I do is I kind of have in my mind like hey This is how we can work together bring it in that's a wonderfully positive points to finish Matt Garrett. Thank you So much for joining us. Thank you. Thanks You