Salesforce Ventures now a VC powerhouse - Business Insider - 0 views
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InsideSales.com CEO Dave Elkington
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VC arm Salesforce Ventures,
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“Making larger investments is the biggest change recently,” said Menlo Ventures’ managing director Matt Murphy, who invested in the same round for InsideSales when he was general partner at Kleiner Perkins. “They are definitely one of the most active and collaborative corporate VCs in the valley.”
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"Considering Salesforce is sitting on top of $1.9 billion in cash, the amount they spent on venture capital is still pretty small. The $145 million cash they invested last quarter is only a fraction of the $731 million it generated in operating cash flow, too. But the fact that Salesforce is increasingly looking for ways to find the next future growth engine through these investments sends a positive sign to the market, Stifel's Rodericks says, especially as Salesforce becomes a more mature company. "They're sitting on a ton of money on their balance sheet, so to a certain degree, investors would like to see them make these strategic investments in companies around this space," Roderick said. And that could potentially lead to more acquisitions, he noted, as Salesforce Ventures has been more active on the buy side too lately. It acquired sales intelligence software RelateIQ for $390 million last year, after spending $2.5 billion on marketing software ExactTarget two years ago. "This certainly gives them more visibility in the companies that they might look at as partners or potential acquisitions down the road," he said. We should be able to get to find out more about it on Thursday, when Salesforce reports its second quarter earnings. Analyst estimates are pretty much in line with Salesforce's forecasts at $1.6 billion in revenue for an EPS of $0.18."