A few years after vowing to tamp down his penchant for mergers and acquisitions in the face of investor pressure, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is getting back to his roots.
Salesforce announced Tuesday that it plans to acquire Braze, a customer-engagement marketing software company, for $5.66 billion. That's 50% more than Braze's valuation as of the close of trading Monday on the Nasdaq, which would appear to reflect just how badly Salesforce wanted to add its technology to its Marketing Cloud service.
"Braze’s event-streaming architecture turns live customer signals and data from cloud data warehouses and other platforms into personalized messages and coordinated journeys, helping marketers adapt engagement as customers browse, buy, and use products," Salesforce said in a press release.
The plan is to integrate the technology across several other parts of the Salesforce empire, including "Data 360, Customer 360, Agentforce, and SIForce," the company said, referring to its agentic AI development platform by both its original name and the name the company uses when talking to the Trump administration.
