Kayyal's ambitions aside, the firm's Salesforce ties are still helping it win deals in what's a crazy market for startup investing. "The distinction of where they're being built is going away," he said, pointing to companies like developer security startup Snyk that started in Tel Aviv and London and is headquartered in Boston. It's invested in companies in 26 countries, and over half the deals it did last year were in international markets, like Hopin, the London-based online events service in which it's grown its stake. "A lot of people responded to the pandemic and started backing companies everywhere, and we've been doing it for six, seven, eight years now," Kayyal said. International investments will remain a focus under Kayyal, despite the fact that he's relocating from London to the Bay Area to oversee a team of around 40 people. It surpassed GV, though, when it came to unicorn investments with 18 deals in the first half, including companies like coaching platform BetterUp and African payments company Flutterwave. ![]() Salesforce Ventures was the second most active investor in the first half after Alphabet's investing arm, GV. Funding rounds that included CVC backing globally reached $79 billion in the first six months, more than all of 2020 combined, according to CB Insights. Call it what you will corporate venture capital set records in the first half of the year. He's taking the reins at a busy time in the venture capital market. His next role will be running the whole thing as the new head of Salesforce Ventures investments, which also includes its impact fund and the newly included Slack Fund. Kayyal spent the last six years building out Salesforce Ventures' global presence, starting with Europe and then expanding to overseeing Asia-Pacific and Latin America. As I looked at a lot of the companies that we're investing in today, it's remarkable how our remit has grown and our aperture for what kinds of companies we're excited about backing has really expanded tremendously," said Kayyal, who took over as Salesforce's lead after its longtime lead Matt Garratt left in June to join Palo Alto-based venture firm CRV. ![]() "In many ways, we've kind of stopped thinking of ourselves as, and I think that's a big change for us. Instead, as the new managing partner overseeing its investments, Kayyal wants Salesforce Ventures to be known as one of the best enterprise software investors out there - no "corporate" qualifier needed. Alex Kayyal wants to shake the perception that Salesforce Ventures is one of the best corporate venture capital firms out there.
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