Key Takeaways
- Salesforce agreed to buy Braze for about $5.66 billion in enterprise value, paying $47.50 per share in cash, a 58.1% premium.
- Braze targets Marketing and Commerce, which grew just 2.8% in fiscal 2026, while Agentforce ARR topped $1.5 billion, up more than 240%.
- About two-thirds of the fiscal 2027 guidance raise came from acquisitions, so organic growth remains the open question.
- The December 2 report will show whether Robin Washington’s promised second-half organic reacceleration is arriving.
Salesforce (CRM) has a buying habit, and it isn’t slowing down.
On October 20, it agreed to acquire Braze (BRZE) for about $5.66 billion in enterprise value. Braze holders get $47.50 per share in cash, a 58.1% premium to the prior close.
Braze stock jumped more than 50%, while Salesforce slipped. Shares closed Wednesday at $240, about 11% below the 52-week high of $269.
The deal follows Informatica for $8 billion last year and Fin for $3.6 billion this year, with Contentful closing too. Every purchase widens the Agentforce pitch. It also blurs how fast Salesforce grows on its own.
Buying real-time marketing at a premium
Braze runs an event-streaming engagement platform across mobile, email, web and in-app messages, and its AI picks the content, offer and timing. The key terms:
- Roughly 2,770 customers.
- Close expected in fiscal 2028, pending Braze shareholder and regulatory approval.
- A $300 million breakup fee for Salesforce, or $191.4 million for Braze.
Salesforce left its fiscal 2027 guidance unchanged.
These deals add up, and the balance sheet shows it…
Total debt more than tripled in the year to July 31, so Braze lands on a balance sheet still carrying the last round of shopping.
Marketing finally gets attention
The target is obvious. Marketing and Commerce grew just 2.8% in fiscal 2026, while the Slack and Agentforce 360 Platform unit grew 22.6%.
Which part of the business needed the help?
Braze gives the laggard real-time tools it couldn’t build fast enough on its own.
Agentforce is the other half of the story. Agentforce ARR passed $1.5 billion in the second quarter, up more than 240%, and Agentforce plus Data 360 ARR reached nearly $3.9 billion.
“We’re seeing incredible demand for our AI and data products, with ARR about to cross $4 billion,” CEO Marc Benioff said in the release.
One caveat: Agentforce ARR now includes Slackbot and Headless 360, so the growth rate isn’t fully comparable. Still, Braze’s live customer data could feed those agents once the deal closes.
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Organic growth carries the proof
Second-quarter revenue rose 11% to $11.35 billion, and adjusted EPS of $5.90 crushed the $3.27 estimate. Salesforce then raised its fiscal 2027 revenue guidance to $46.1 billion to $46.4 billion.
But about two-thirds of that raise came from the Contentful and Fin acquisitions. Operating and free cash flow are also expected to grow just 4% to 5% this year, slower than revenue.
Robin Washington, Salesforce’s president and CFO, said new bookings growth is the “strongest it’s been in four years, keeping us on track for second-half organic revenue reacceleration.”
Buybacks support the per-share story meanwhile. The $25 billion accelerated repurchase launched in March is the company’s largest ever, and management expects to retire at least 14% of shares.
The multiple leaves room, if growth shows up:
Salesforce trades at 16.4x forward earnings, close to Oracle (ORCL) at 15.3x, although analysts expect Oracle’s revenue to grow almost four times faster.
My take: Braze is a sensible fix for Salesforce’s weakest unit, and $5.66 billion is affordable for a company buying back $25 billion of stock. Still, I’d stop giving credit to the deal machine until organic growth reaccelerates as promised. At 16.4x forward earnings, the stock prices in modest growth, which feels fair.
Salesforce reports third-quarter results on December 2. Guidance calls for $11.42 billion to $11.50 billion of revenue and about 14% cRPO growth, and the call should show how much of that growth Salesforce built itself.
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
