Salesforce says Braze’s real-time messaging would strengthen Marketing Cloud as marketers turn to AI agents that act on customer behavior in real time.
Salesforce said Oct. 20 that it has agreed to acquire Braze, a customer engagement platform, for about $5.66 billion in enterprise value. Holders of Braze Class A common stock will receive $47.50 in cash per share.
Braze, which trades on Nasdaq, helps marketers respond to customer behavior in real time and coordinate personalized messages across mobile apps, websites, email, SMS, WhatsApp and other channels. Its event-streaming architecture is built for high-volume consumer engagement, continuously updating customer profiles and adapting customer journeys. Salesforce said it powers trillions of messages and journey actions each year. BrazeAI adds AI tools that optimize content, offers, channels and timing.
“Every interaction is an opportunity to wow your customers,” said Patrick Stokes, president of applications and marketing at Salesforce. “Most of that wow comes from knowing your customer, and responding at just the right moment. Braze was built to turn live customer behavior into personalized engagement at scale. Bringing that capability together with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, CRM, and Data 360 will deliver that wow moment in every customer interaction.”
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“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. “This past year we shipped at the fastest pace in our history, and BrazeAI is helping marketers get their best ideas live faster. 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. Salesforce’s platform will help us innovate faster and together we’ll help marketers around the world build deeper, more lasting relationships with their customers.”
Salesforce said AI is raising the bar for marketers, who now need agentic tools that can understand customers, make decisions and act in real time. It said it is pursuing that shift through its own development and through acquisitions that meet its M&A framework: advancing customer success, fitting its strategy, accelerating innovation and creating long-term value.
After the deal closes, Salesforce expects Braze’s real-time engagement and AI decisioning to complement four layers of its architecture: Data 360, Customer 360, Agentforce and SIForce. Within Customer 360, Salesforce expects Braze to strengthen Marketing Cloud’s cross-channel personalization, helping brands tailor experiences in real time for hundreds of millions of people. The companies also said they share an open, composable approach that gives customers flexibility across data, tools and partners.
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Salesforce said the combination would help businesses in three ways:
- Act on behavior in real time. Braze’s event-streaming architecture turns live customer signals, and data from cloud data warehouses and other platforms, into personalized messages and coordinated journeys.
- Deliver richer experiences across channels. Braze’s mobile and app tools, including in-app messages, personalized content feeds and live updates, would work alongside email, web and messaging channels.
- Make personalization more intelligent. Braze’s AI decisioning would combine with Salesforce’s customer data and Agentforce to make engagement more relevant and connect marketing with commerce, sales and service.
Braze has about 2,770 customers, including Canva, Dairy Queen, Equinox, Instacart, Urban Outfitters and Venmo. Led by co-founders Magnuson and Jon Hyman, it would bring its mobile, data engineering and customer engagement expertise to Marketing Cloud.
