Salesforce has today announced a new $50 million fund from Salesforce Ventures, the company’s corporate investment group. The new SI (system integrator) Trailblazer Fund will be dedicated to the next-generation of cloud consulting firms, enabling them to accelerate their growth and drive greater customer success. In conjunction with the fund, Salesforce is also launching a new SI Trailblazer Alliance Initiative to provide portfolio companies with resources and training to build out their service capabilities for the future.
“Consulting firms play a pivotal role in the Salesforce ecosystem, implementing Salesforce solutions that meet the needs of customers of all sizes, industries and geographies,” said John Somorjai, EVP of Corporate Development and Salesforce Ventures, Salesforce. “This new fund will foster the next-generation of SIs and supercharge the growth of the Salesforce ecosystem.”
Today, growing demand for Salesforce solutions is creating new opportunities for consulting partners to empower companies to transform their businesses by focusing on their customers. In fact, consulting partners are seeing their Salesforce practices grow more than 50% annually. However, this increased demand is also creating a need for new partners that can provide additional skilled capacity to deploy the full family of Salesforce offerings to customers.
The new $50 million SI Trailblazer Fund will provide the next generation of cloud consulting companies with the capital required to build and scale their Salesforce services capabilities for the future—and empower customers to transform their businesses with Salesforce. New SI Trailblazer Fund investments include:
- 7Summits: As a leading online community consulting partner focused on the social community space and the Salesforce Community Cloud, 7Summits will use this investment to further fund its growth plans.
- Arxxus: Arxxus is a leading provider of Salesforce professional services in Australia that will leverage this investment to further expand its services capacity in the mid-market sector and its expertise in public sector.
- ATG: ATG provides quote-to-cash (CPQ) advisory and implementation services, and will leverage the investment to continue providing CPQ and billing expertise, services, training and tools to leading Salesforce partners as they build their practices across North America, EMEA and APAC.
Launching in parallel with the SI Trailblazer Fund, the new SI Trailblazer Alliance Initiative will provide SI Trailblazer portfolio companies with access to a wide-range of concierge resources, training and tools including:
- Accelerated onboarding experience: With guided interactive training through Trailhead, priority access to boot camps and workshops and a Partner Onboarding Specialist, consulting partners can join the Salesforce Partner Program and get ramped up quickly.
- Marketing and sales mentorship: Portfolio consulting companies can learn marketing best-practices with courses delivered by Salesforce experts; utilize a Partner Marketing Specialist to build custom marketing plans; and access Marketing Development Funds (MDF).
- Implementation guidance: With mentoring from tenured partners and assistance in developing Salesforce solutions (including Fullforce and Lightning Bolt), portfolio companies are empowered to deliver successful implementations—creating thriving businesses.
“Growing customer demand for Salesforce has created a critical need for more Salesforce-trained consulting partners as part of the thriving ‘Salesforce Economy,’” said Tyler Prince, EVP of Worldwide Alliances and Go-to-Market Innovation, Salesforce. “The new SI Trailblazer Fund and SI Trailblazer Alliance Initiative will help fuel our consulting partner ecosystem and empower the next generation of high-growth cloud consultancies.”
The cloud represents an enormous opportunity for partners to transform every industry, create jobs and accelerate economies around the world. In fact, according to IDC, Salesforce and its ecosystem of customers and partners will drive more than $389 billion in new GDP impact and 1.9 million new jobs worldwide by 2020.
Coupled with Salesforce Trailhead—Salesforce’s free online learning platform—the new SI Trailblazer Fund and Alliance Initiative supports the thriving “Salesforce Economy” with an infusion of capital and resources to empower partners to drive customer success.
