Salesforce to Buy Braze for $5.66 Billion in Cash

By Tom Whitfield

Salesforce has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Braze for roughly $5.66 billion, the CRM giant announced Tuesday. Braze shareholders will receive $47.50 in cash for each Class A share.

Braze, based in New York, operates a real-time customer engagement platform that collects customer data, analyzes audience data and sends personalized marketing messages. Salesforce framed the deal as a direct extension of its marketing stack.

"Braze helps marketers build deeper customer relationships by responding to customer behavior in real time, coordinating personalized experiences across mobile apps, websites, email, SMS, WhatsApp, and more," Salesforce said in a press release.

What does the deal change for Salesforce?

In an investor presentation filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Salesforce said it will fund the acquisition entirely in cash. The company told investors the deal will boost growth but dilute profitability in the near term. It also cited "significant operational efficiencies" across the combined businesses.

The strategic logic is distribution against specialization. Salesforce pitched Braze as a product built for high-volume consumer brands that need real-time mobile engagement. Braze, in return, gets Salesforce's global distribution reach.

Salesforce plans to put Braze's AI to work in three ways:

• Deliver real-time signals on customer behavior
• Deliver services across platforms
• Help marketers optimize content using Braze's AI

Braze's client roster includes Canva, Dairy Queen, Equinox, Instacart, Urban Offitters and Venmo.

How big is Salesforce's acquisition spree?

The Braze purchase caps a year of aggressive dealmaking despite previous concerns about AI's impact on Salesforce's business. According to its 10-Q filings with the SEC, the company acquired Qualified Inc., an agentic AI marketing company, for $1.2 billion in April. It also agreed to acquire Contentful Global for approximately $1.5 billion and Intercom, Inc. ("Fin"), a platform providing end-to-end AI service agents, for $3.6 billion.

Those three deals alone total roughly $6.3 billion. Braze pushes Salesforce's announced 2025-26 acquisition spending past $11.9 billion.

The spree began earlier. Last year, Salesforce acquired Informatica, an enterprise cloud data management company, for around $8 billion. According to its 10-Q, Informatica brought in around $900 million over the first half of 2026 — about $1.8 billion on an annualized basis.

Salesforce did not respond to ADWEEK's request for comment.

In plain terms: Salesforce is paying a premium for real-time engagement and AI it did not build, and investors will watch whether Braze's growth justifies the near-term hit to profitability.