Salesforce to acquire marketing automation provider Braze for $5.66B

Salesforce to acquire marketing automation provider Braze for $5.66B

Salesforce Inc. today announced plans to acquire Braze Inc. for $5.66 billion in cash.

The deal values the marketing software provider at $47.5 per share, which is about 58% higher than its last closing price. The steep premium is a reflection of Braze’s strong finances. The company’s revenue grew 26% year-over-year last quarter, to $227.2 million, while its adjusted operating income nearly quadrupled.

Enterprises often spread their customer records across multiple systems, which makes them difficult to analyze. Braze offers a cloud platform that can aggregate customer data into a centralized repository to ease processing. It collects the information using more than 190 pre-packaged connectors.

The platform organizes the data that it ingests into a standardized format using user-created scripts. From there, it groups customers with similar interests into segments. An electronics retailer, for example, could create a segment that includes all the shoppers who have bought smartphones via its website.

Braze enables companies to create personalized marketing campaigns for every customer segment. A set of built-in artificial intelligence features, BrazeAI, automatically creates campaign materials such as promotional emails. It customizes the content based on parameters such as product availability and a customer’s purchase history.

A feature called Agentic Standards enables users to create guardrails for AI-generated campaigns. For example, a marketing team could specify the maximum number of times an ad can be displayed to a shopper. From there, Braze automatically sorts out details such as the best time of day to send a promotional message. 

Braze can distribute promotional messages via a company’s website, mobile app, SMS, WhatsApp and several other channels. A set of observability dashboards enables marketers to monitor the performance of each channel. Braze displays metrics such as the percentage of recipients who clicked a shopping link inside a sales email.

Salesforce will use the company’s technology to enhance its Marketing Cloud platform. Like Braze, the platform enables companies to combine customer data from different sources and use it to personalize their marketing campaigns. Built-in AI agents automate repetitive parts of the workflow. Salesforce says that the acquisition will improve Marketing Cloud’s ability to personalize campaigns across multiple outreach channels.

“Salesforce shares our commitment to marketers, and we’ll continue building as Braze and investing in the Braze community of customers and partners who built this company with us,” said Braze co-founder and Chief Executive Bill Magnuson. “Salesforce’s platform will help us innovate faster.”

Salesforce expects to close the acquisition in its 2028 fiscal year, which starts next February. 

Photo: Salesforce