Salesforce to Buy Marketing Software Maker Braze for $5.7 Billion

Salesforce said Tuesday it has agreed to buy Braze, a customer-messaging software company, for about $5.66 billion in cash, one of the software giant's largest acquisitions since its $27.7 billion purchase of Slack in 2021.

Under the terms disclosed in a joint announcement, Salesforce will pay $47.50 a share in cash for Braze, which trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker BRZE. The deal was filed with securities regulators Tuesday morning in matching disclosures from both companies: Salesforce's own filing, the joint press release attached to it, and a parallel disclosure from Braze, all lodged with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Filling a gap in the marketing stack

Braze runs a platform that lets brands send real-time, personalized messages to customers across apps, websites, email, push notifications and text, using live behavioral data to decide what to send and when. Its roughly 2,770 customers include Canva, Dairy Queen, Equinox, Instacart, Urban Outfitters and Venmo, according to the companies' announcement. Salesforce plans to fold that technology into its Marketing Cloud alongside its existing Data 360, Customer 360 and Agentforce products, betting that real-time, event-driven messaging is a capability its own tools have lacked.

"Braze was built to turn live customer behavior into personalized engagement at scale," Patrick Stokes, Salesforce's president of applications and marketing, said in the companies' statement. Braze's chief executive and co-founder, Bill Magnuson, said the company would keep operating under its own name: "Salesforce shares our commitment to marketers, and we'll continue building as Braze and investing in the Braze community."

The acquisition is expected to close during Salesforce's 2028 fiscal year, pending approval from Braze shareholders and regulators. Salesforce said the deal would not change its guidance for the current fiscal year, and that it has not yet issued guidance for the year in which the deal is expected to close. Braze intends to file a preliminary proxy statement covering the merger with the SEC in the coming weeks, a step confirmed in both companies' regulatory filings.

Part of a wider consolidation wave

The purchase lands in the middle of a broader push by the largest enterprise software companies to buy up smaller, AI-enabled marketing and data tools rather than build every capability from scratch. Braze itself had been an acquirer in this cycle, buying the AI retention-marketing startup OfferFit for $325 million last year. Salesforce, which describes itself as the world's top customer relationship management platform, has used large deals to fill strategic gaps before, including its 2021 purchase of Slack and smaller acquisitions aimed at bolstering its data and artificial-intelligence offerings.

Braze, founded in 2011 and headquartered in New York with offices across the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific, went public on the Nasdaq in 2021. Its stock had traded well below its IPO price for much of the past two years even as its revenue kept growing, making it a target for a buyer willing to pay a premium for its technology and customer base rather than wait for the market to re-rate the shares on its own.

Salesforce's financial advisor on the deal was J.P. Morgan Securities, with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Covington & Burling serving as legal counsel. Braze was advised by Qatalyst Partners, with Davis Polk & Wardwell as its legal counsel, according to the joint release. Both companies said the agreement remains subject to customary closing conditions, including the risk that regulators could delay or block it, a possibility both filings flagged explicitly under their forward-looking-statement disclosures.

Co-founders Magnuson and Jon Hyman are expected to join Salesforce's marketing organization once the deal closes, bringing roughly 15 years of combined experience building Braze's mobile and data-engineering infrastructure. Neither company detailed what, if anything, would change for Braze's roughly 2,770 corporate customers in the interim, beyond pledging that the product would keep operating under the Braze brand for now.