Salesforce Ventures

Highlights from another great convo I had last week at #DF25 with Altana CEO and Co-Founder Evan Smith 📹

#DF25 sponsor appreciation post 💗 More than a dozen Salesforce Ventures portfolio companies participated in this year's Dreamforce as sponsors. I had the chance to visit the Campground and say hello to some of them. Thank you for your steadfast partnership and support in helping make this year's Dreamforce the best one yet: Box, Certinia, Copado, Genesys, Glean, Ironclad, Odaseva, Pendo.io, RightRev, Snowflake, Stripe, Threekit Visual Commerce, and Typeface 🙏

Our final Salesforce Ventures portfolio session at #DF25 this year featured Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch and COO Jeanne DeWitt Grosser discussing their company's vision for the agentic web and software's next frontier. Some highlights from the talk: 🌐 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐞𝐛 𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 — Just as cloud re-made the web once, agents are poised to transform the web again with agents that can act on the users behalf. "You don't just want AI that responds, you want it to go work on a problem for three hours and then come back with an exact insight."   👨🏭 𝐃𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 — "Our very competent devs are now managing 5-6 agents," Guillermo noted. "You're becoming an engineering manager even as an IC." Software engineering is evolving, and with AI democratizing development, Guillermo believes the number of people able to do engineering work will explode.   🤖 𝐀𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟-𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐕𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐥 — Guillermo said his company's agents now handle 75% of customer service tickets and are capable of responding to highly complex technical questions. When threats emerge, agents look into them first.   💡𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 — While agents-as-a-service will be powerful, Guillermo's advice is clear: "You're better off in the long run building your own, because you know your business better than anyone else." A compelling vision for where software is headed. Thanks Guillermo and Jeanne for the insights and ending #DF25 on a strong note 💪

Dreamforce 2025 has been an impressive showcase of AI-powered innovation across the Salesforce ecosystem, and the Salesforce Ventures portfolio has been at the forefront. Today, we announced that we’ve deployed over $850 million of our $1 billion AI Fund to support the next generation of enterprise AI companies. With this rapid deployment, the fund is on track to fully invest by the end of 2025. Many of the most prominent CEOs in our portfolio have joined us this week at Dreamforce as headline speakers, including market leaders like Anthropic, Figure, and Docusign, and emerging innovators like Altana, WRITER, Together AI and Vercel. It’s a privilege to bring our portfolio together and provide them with unique opportunities for connection with customers as well as the broader Salesforce ecosystem. This unique access and connectivity are core to the value we aim to deliver to founders in the Salesforce Ventures portfolio. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gTr9izy4 #DF25

Fun lil' chat today at #DF25 with Richard Socher, founder and CEO of Salesforce Ventures portfolio company You.com 📹 🍿

Salesforce Ventures portfolio CEO Evan Smith (Altana) sat down this afternoon with Salesforce board member Amy Chang at #D25 for an engaging panel on how enterprises are navigating supply chain volatility 🚢 Some conversation highlights: 🛜 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐚 𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 — Evan likened Altana to LinkedIn's business relationship graph, but for the physical economy: able to track who owns what, who ships where, who builds what. In the modern world, you can't just manage buyer-supplier relationships anymore — you need visibility into your suppliers' suppliers. Altana is helping enterprises gain this critical oversight. 🚧 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐲 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞-𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 — "Supply chain network competition is the new normal, and it's unclear how it's going to play out," Evan said. "A resilient enterprise is one that is managing their business as an extended network and not just a series of buyer and supplier relationships." Enterprises are realizing the supply chains they've relied on aren't necessarily the ones they can rely on going forward — and are now planning multiple contingencies in the face of increasing volatility. 🔃 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐭𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐜 𝐚𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐛𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐧𝐨𝐰 — But most enterprises are still trying to figure out where to start. Amy's advice: "We need to get into a spirit of experimentation. The more you can get your experimentation to tie to a bottom-line impact, the easier you'll find the change management required to make it happen." A great conversation on a nuanced and important topic. Thanks Amy and Evan for your insights 🙏

🌐 At #DF25's "Rethinking Cloud Infrastructure for Engineers" panel, Salesforce Ventures portfolio founders Russ d'Sa (LiveKit) and Alon Arvatz (PointFive) chatted about what matters when it comes to AI infrastructure. Some of my takeaways: 🧠 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐬 — AI companies talk about intelligence like it's a utility that you can just plug into, but even electricity needs power plants and charging stations to actually work. AI is the same way — it needs a vast layer of infrastructure to be usable. And because the current internet wasn't designed for AI applications, to get voice and vision tools rolling, we need to rebuild the infrastructure from scratch. As Russ puts it: "Intelligence is also a raw material that requires a harness." 🤝 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐈 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐤 — LLMs are black boxes: Users don't know what's happening behind the scenes. That blocks adoption. The fix comes from better observability and evaluation. Companies need to evaluate AI like they evaluate humans: test, verify, observe, repeat. Without that, enterprises won't roll it out broadly, no matter how good the technology gets.  💰 𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐮𝐥, 𝐀𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐛𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐞 — AI agents can blow up costs fast if you're not running efficiently. That's why observability matters — you need to know which model provider works best for your use case, and keep costs under control from Day 1.   🏃♀️ 𝐄𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 — Fortune 500s are afraid of AI disruption, because they know that what they've built over decades could be replaced in just years with AI. That's pushing them to prioritize innovation instead of avoiding risks. They're getting more comfortable shipping AI-native products and competing directly with startups so they don't fall behind. 🚧 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐀𝐈 —"My marketing guy can build browser extensions using AI, and he's never written a line of code. He just vibe-coded it. Everyone in the org is a builder now." In startups where 60-70% of the staff are engineers, the ability for everyone to build is a welcome development. For enterprises, it's tough to govern but hard to avoid: It's the future of how work gets done. Another sharp #DF25 conversation with a ton of good teachings. Thanks Alon and Russ for sharing!