diff --git a/gtsam.h b/gtsam.h
index 76804a769..3868ed4bf 100644
--- a/gtsam.h
+++ b/gtsam.h
@@ -1095,6 +1095,9 @@ class VectorValues {
   void resize(size_t nVars, size_t varDim);
   void setZero();
 
+  gtsam::VectorValues add(const gtsam::VectorValues& c) const;
+  gtsam::VectorValues scale(double a, const gtsam::VectorValues& c) const;
+
     //FIXME: Parse errors with vector()
   //const Vector& vector() const;
   //Vector& vector();
diff --git a/gtsam/linear/VectorValues.h b/gtsam/linear/VectorValues.h
index 1e63c5bb5..880bdcd5f 100644
--- a/gtsam/linear/VectorValues.h
+++ b/gtsam/linear/VectorValues.h
@@ -303,6 +303,15 @@ namespace gtsam {
 
     /// @}
 
+    /// @}
+    /// @name Matlab syntactic sugar for linear algebra operations
+    /// @{
+
+    inline VectorValues add(const VectorValues& c) const { return *this + c; }
+    inline VectorValues scale(const double a, const VectorValues& c) const { return a * (*this); }
+
+    /// @}
+
   private:
     // Throw an exception if j does not exist
     void checkExists(Index j) const {