Salesforce has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Braze, a customer engagement platform that consumer brands use for real-time messaging across apps, web, email and text, for about $5.66 billion in enterprise value. Braze Class A shareholders will receive $47.50 per share in cash, Salesforce said on October 20.

The offer is a premium of about 58% to Braze’s closing price before the announcement, according to Financier Worldwide. In an analysis published the day of the announcement, SaaStr‘s Jason Lemkin put Braze’s Monday, October 19, close at $30.04 and calculated that the price values the company at about 6.8 times trailing 12-month revenue of $834 million, compared with about 3.7 times the day before the deal.

What Braze brings

According to Salesforce’s release, Braze runs real-time, cross-channel business-to-consumer (B2C) messaging across mobile apps, websites, email, SMS, WhatsApp, in-app messages, personalized content feeds and live updates. Its BrazeAI product adds AI-driven optimization of content, offers, channels and timing. Braze has about 2,770 customers, including Canva, Dairy Queen, Equinox, Instacart, Urban Outfitters and Venmo, and is headquartered in New York with 15 offices. Co-founders Bill Magnuson and Jon Hyman are expected to lead Braze within Salesforce.

Salesforce said Braze’s real-time engagement and AI decisioning will complement the four layers of its architecture: Data 360, Customer 360, Agentforce and SIForce. Within Customer 360, Braze is expected to strengthen Marketing Cloud’s cross-channel personalization. The companies also said they share a commitment to an “open, composable approach.”

“Braze was built on the conviction that marketers and their creativity are a brand’s ultimate competitive advantage,” said Bill Magnuson, CEO and co-founder of Braze.

Patrick Stokes, Salesforce’s president of applications and marketing, said in the release: “Every interaction is an opportunity to wow your customers.”

The numbers behind the deal

Braze’s most recent quarterly results, reported September 8, showed revenue of $227.2 million, up 26% from a year earlier, according to SaaStr’s analysis, which also reported operating expenses up 6% to $170 million and dollar-based net retention of 110%. SaaStr put Braze’s fiscal 2027 revenue guidance at $910 million to $913 million, said the shares fell 25.1% in the week of those results, and noted that Braze’s 2021 initial public offering price of $65 was above the takeover price.

Salesforce said there is no anticipated change to its fiscal 2027 guidance, that it has not guided fiscal 2028 and that its long-term targets are unchanged. J.P. Morgan Securities is Salesforce’s exclusive financial adviser, with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Covington & Burling as legal counsel. Qatalyst Partners is Braze’s exclusive financial adviser, and Davis Polk & Wardwell is its legal counsel.

The deal adds to a run of Salesforce acquisitions this year. Financier Worldwide noted Salesforce’s June agreement to buy AI customer service platform Fin for $3.6 billion, its completed purchase of m3ter, and the $2 billion acquisition of customer research startup Listen Labs announced in late September.

Why it matters

Braze’s customer list includes retailers and app-based consumer brands such as Urban Outfitters and Instacart. Salesforce’s release says Braze will strengthen Marketing Cloud, Salesforce’s own marketing product, but it does not say whether Braze will continue to be sold as a standalone product or how it will work with non-Salesforce data and commerce systems beyond the reference to an open, composable approach. Magnuson said in the release that Braze will continue to invest in its community of customers and partners.

The price also gives a reference point for software valuations. SaaStr’s comparison put HubSpot and Klaviyo, two other marketing software vendors, at about 3.1 times trailing revenue at Monday’s close, against the roughly 6.8 times Salesforce is paying for Braze.

What to watch

The transaction is expected to close in Salesforce’s fiscal year 2028, subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by Braze shareholders and required regulatory approvals.

The caveats

The valuation multiples and Braze operating figures in this story come from SaaStr’s analysis rather than directly from Braze’s filings, and the premium figure comes from media reports; Salesforce’s release does not state a premium. Forward-looking statements about integration and timing are the companies’ own.