SaaStr 035: Matt Garratt on The Strategy Behind Salesforce Ventures

Matt Garratt currently runs Salesforce Ventures with the mandate to build out salesforce’s ecosystem of partners with equity investments. Matt has led key strategic investments at Salesforce in companies such as former guests Gainsight, and Invoca as well as Anaplan and Insidesales.com just to name a few. Prior to salesforce Matt was a VP at the prestigious SaaS investor Battery Ventures. Also in the show today we mention Jason Lemkin and Aaron Ross new book From Impossible to Inevitable: How Hypergrowth Companies Create Predictable Revenue and if you have not read that, that is a must and can be found here! In This Episode With Matt You Will Learn: How Matt made his entry into the world of VC and came to run Salesforce Ventures? What did Salesforce do right to give Matt the ability to formalise the fund? What did Matt learn in the less formal stages of investing? What are the benefits that startups receive from being portfolio companies of Salesforce Ventures? How does matt view Salesforce Ventures in the early stage investing landscape? Does Matt like to co-invest with other prominent funds? How does M&A work within Salesforce Ventures? Are you willing to sell to your competitors? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings Saastr Matt Garratt This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit cloud.substack.com