Winning entrepreneur or startup building on the Force.com Platform to
receive up to 1 Million pounds in funding from leading early stage
technology venture capital firm
Financing innovation not infrastructure, in the age of
Platform-as-a-Service
LONDON, May 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- salesforce.com Dreamforce
Europe Conference -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the market and technology
leader in Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service, and Eden
Ventures, the early stage venture capital firm specializing in software and
technology, today announced the 1 Million pounds Force.com Investment
Challenge -- a venture challenge for entrepreneurs and early stage
companies building on the Force.com Platform. Force.com delivers
Platform-as-a-Service, enabling companies to develop and deliver any
application on demand.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050216/SFW105LOGO)
The 1 Million pounds Force.com Investment Challenge, the first of its
kind in the UK, is designed to inspire a new generation of independent
software vendors (ISVs) to develop and deliver SaaS applications on the
Force.com Platform. The winner will have the opportunity to negotiate with
Eden Ventures for a potential investment of up to 1 million pounds. Eden
Ventures will announce the winner in November at Dreamforce 2008,
salesforce.com's user and developer conference.
"New investment models are required to match the new technology and
business models made possible with Platform-as-a-Service and
Software-as-a-Service," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO,
salesforce.com. "Eden Ventures has a track record of success in identifying
entrepreneurs and startups that have the vision and leadership necessary
for long term business success. That's why they are investing in companies
based on the Force.com Platform."
"SaaS and PaaS have transformed how entrepreneurs and established
companies build, deliver and deploy business applications," said Mark
Farmer, General Partner, Eden Ventures. "As a team of successful
entrepreneurs and experienced business managers we will apply our
collective operational expertise to assist the development of SaaS and PaaS
companies. Eden Ventures will help this new generation of entrepreneurs
leverage Force.com to not only build innovative applications but also build
successful long term businesses."
The 1 Million pounds Force.com Investment Challenge
For the 1 Million pounds Force.com Investment Challenge, salesforce.com
will work closely with Eden Ventures in an advisory capacity. As Eden
reviews promising entrepreneurs and early stage companies building on the
Force.com platform, salesforce.com will assist in due diligence, provide
design review, packaging and distribution best practices, and go-to market
programs for companies building applications on the Force.com platform.
Eden Ventures and salesforce.com will meet regularly to review Force.com
applications and companies that meet the criteria for the 1 Million pounds
Force.com Investment Challenge.
Eden Ventures will participate in a panel of judges evaluating the
entries and selecting the winning entrepreneur or startup. In addition to
providing a financial investment, the selected business will receive
ongoing support from Eden's team to grow their business. With Eden's strong
seed and Series A investment track record, they have particular skill in
identifying entrepreneurs with the right balance of vision and leadership
who can develop companies of lasting value. Entrants in the 1 Million
pounds Force.com Investment Challenge will be judged along eight main
criteria:
-- A strong team with deep domain knowledge
-- International vision and ambition
-- Customer success and user adoption
-- A significant market opportunity and likelihood of becoming market
leader
-- Adoption and innovative use of the Force.com Platform
-- Financial plan
-- Competitive differentiation
-- Likelihood of long-term company success
For more information, contest rules, and to enter, please visit
http://www.edenventures.co.uk/ or http://www.salesforce.com/eu/eden/.
Force.com Platform and the AppExchange
Force.com (http://www.force.com/) reinvents the traditional
development, deployment and distribution of any business application with
platform-as-a-service. Developers, customers and partners can use Force.com
to easily create a new generation of on-demand applications and deploy them
worldwide as a service. Force.com allows applications to be easily shared,
exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com's
AppExchange marketplace, enabling all the innovation that Force.com
unleashes to be easily distributed to the entire on-demand community.
The AppExchange economy continues to expand, with thousands of
customers installing applications via the AppExchange. Customers of all
sizes can quickly and easily extend Salesforce with additional on-demand
business applications available on the AppExchange, found at
http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/.
About Eden Ventures
Eden Ventures invests in technology companies in the telecommunications
software, enterprise software, digital media, e-commerce, internet and
mobile sectors in the UK and Ireland. Eden Ventures was founded by a group
of software engineers turned investors and the team brings real operational
experience to the venture process. The company's blend of knowledge,
experience and skill covers business strategy, sales and marketing, finance
and operations, M & A transactions and institutional fund management. Eden
delivers value to early stage technology companies through investment of
hands-on skills and expertise as well as seed funding and Series A finance.
Its goal is to help the businesses in its portfolio grow to their maximum
potential through utilization of a key blend of skills and expertise.
Eden's existing portfolio includes Huddle, Reevoo and Truphone, and
recently completed exits include the sale of Apertio to Nokia. In 2007 Eden
Ventures was awarded Winner, Exit of the Year, 2007 for the sale of Cramer
Systems to Amdocs by Investor AllStars. Eden Ventures (UK) Ltd. is
regulated by FSA. http://www.edenventures.co.uk
About salesforce.com
Salesforce.com is the market and technology leader in
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). The
company's portfolio of SaaS applications, including its award-winning CRM,
available at http://www.salesforce.com/products/, has revolutionized the
ways that customers manage and share business information over the
Internet. The company's Force.com PaaS enables customers, developers and
partners to build powerful on-demand applications that deliver the benefits
of multi-tenancy across the enterprise. Applications built on the Force.com
platform, available at http://www.force.com/, can be easily shared,
exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com's
AppExchange marketplace available at
http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/.
As of January 31, 2008, salesforce.com manages customer information for
approximately 41,000 customers including ABN AMRO, Dow Jones Newswires,
Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, Sprint Nextel, and SunTrust Banks. Any
unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases
or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered
on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications
should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently
available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices
in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the
ticker symbol "CRM". For more information please visit
http://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.
Copyright (c) 2008 salesforce.com, inc. All rights reserved. Salesforce
and the "no software" logo are registered trademarks of salesforce.com,
inc., and salesforce.com owns other registered and unregistered trademarks.
Other names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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