Salesforce Inc. signage during the Singapore FinTech Festival in Singapore, on Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Salesforce announced Tuesday that it’s buying cloud data management firm Informatica in an $8 billion deal to bolster the enterprise software giant’s push into artificial intelligence.
Shares of Salesforce were up 1% on Tuesday. Informatica stock climbed more than 5%.
“Truly autonomous, trustworthy AI agents need the most comprehensive understanding of their data,” said Steve Fisher, Salesforce president and chief technology officer, in a release announcing the deal. “The combination of Informatica’s advanced catalog and metadata capabilities with our Agentforce platform delivers exactly this.”
Under the terms of the deal, holders of Informatica’s Class A and Class B-1 common stock will receive $25 in cash per share, according to the release.
Bloomberg reported Friday that the companies were in talks about a deal. The report sent shares of Informatica soaring.
Salesforce, which specializes in customer relationship management software, said it would look to combine Informatica’s data catalog, integration, governance, privacy and data management services with its agentic AI solution, dubbed Agentforce.
The deal will be funded through a combination of cash on Salesforce’s balance sheet and new debt, the company said.
The acquisition adds to a slew of deals Salesforce has made over the years as the company has sought to expand its product portfolio and gain market share. It bought Slack in 2021 for $27.7 billion, Tableau in 2019 for $15.7 billion and MuleSoft in 2018 for $6.5 billion.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said Tuesday that the firm would look to leverage Informatica alongside its Data Cloud, MuleSoft and Tableau products to “enable autonomous agents to deliver smarter, safer, and more scalable outcomes for every company.”
