Pitch competition offers firms chance to get £100,000

Salesforce is opening a new pitch competition to start-ups in Ireland and the UK, with £100,000 up for grabs.

The company is extending its Dreampitch competition to London as part of the company’s “World Tour” event, which brings Salesforce customers together with business leaders and gives Salesforce the opportunity to showcase its products.

Dreampitch will give three start-ups the chance to pitch their innovation to the company's London event on May 17th, with a panel of judges deciding who will get the funding from Salesforce Ventures. Among the judges are serial entrepreneur James Caan and president of TechUK Jacqueline de Rojas.

The Dreampitch competition began at the company’s annual conference in San Francisco, Dreamforce, in 2016.

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Start-up success

“Our passion for innovation and start-up success also fuels Salesforce’s start-up competition,” the company said.

To be eligible for the competition, the companies must have built their technology stack on the Salesforce Platform, or integrate with it.

Applications are open to firms that have less than £5 million in total cash funding since they were formed, with more than £100,000 gross revenue on an annual run rate basis. The three finalists will be chosen from the applicants and given a round trip with accommodation for two presenters, along with the opportunity to pitch on the Salesforce stage, an appearance that will be streamed to thousands of viewers.

The firms that win funding from Salesforce will be in good company. Among the list of companies Salesforce Ventures has invested in are Datahug, DocuSign, Dropbox and NewVoiceMedia. In total, it has invested in more than 250 enterprise cloud companies in 14 different countries since 2009.