The all-cash deal brings Braze’s event-streaming customer engagement platform and its roughly 2,770 customers into Salesforce, with closing expected no earlier than February 2027.
Salesforce has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Braze, the New York-based customer engagement platform, for approximately $5.66 billion in enterprise value. Holders of Braze Class A common stock will receive $47.50 per share in cash, about a 58% premium to Braze’s Monday closing price of $30.04, according to Bloomberg and Reuters.
Braze shares rose roughly 50% on Tuesday following a brief premarket trading halt, while Salesforce shares slipped about 1%, CNBC reported.
For enterprise marketing leaders, the deal puts one of the most widely used independent engagement platforms for mobile-first, high-volume consumer brands under the same roof as Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Braze’s customers include Canva, Dairy Queen, Equinox, Instacart, Urban Outfitters and Venmo.
What Braze brings
Braze coordinates personalized messaging across mobile apps, websites, email, SMS, WhatsApp and other channels, adjusting customer journeys as user behavior changes. Salesforce describes its cloud-native, event-streaming architecture as optimized for high-volume, real-time B2C engagement, and says the platform powers trillions of messages and journey actions each year. Its AI layer, BrazeAI, optimizes content, offers, channel and timing decisions.
Salesforce said Braze’s real-time engagement and AI decisioning capabilities are expected to complement all 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 for brands reaching audiences in the hundreds of millions.
The company outlined three areas where it expects the combination to matter for customers:
- Real-time behavioral response. Braze turns live customer signals, along with data from cloud data warehouses and other platforms, into personalized messages and coordinated journeys.
- Mobile and app channels. Braze’s in-app messages, personalized content feeds and live updates would work alongside email, web and messaging channels.
- AI decisioning tied to CRM context. Salesforce plans to pair Braze’s decisioning with its own customer data and Agentforce, connecting marketing engagement to commerce, sales and service.
“Every interaction is an opportunity to wow your customers,” said Patrick Stokes, President, Applications and Marketing, 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.”
Bill Magnuson, CEO and co-founder of Braze, indicated the company will 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 of customers and partners who built this company with us,” he said. “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.”
Magnuson and co-founder Jon Hyman would bring expertise in mobile experiences, data engineering and customer engagement to Salesforce Marketing Cloud, according to the announcement. Both companies also said they share a commitment to an open, composable approach that gives customers flexibility across the data, tools and partners they use.
Deal terms and timing
The transaction is expected to close in Salesforce’s fiscal year 2028, which begins in February 2027. Closing is subject to approval by Braze shareholders and required regulatory approvals.
Salesforce said the deal does not change its fiscal 2027 guidance. It has not issued fiscal 2028 guidance and is not updating long-term targets.
J.P. Morgan Securities is serving as exclusive financial advisor to Salesforce, with Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Covington & Burling as legal counsel. Qatalyst Partners is exclusive financial advisor to Braze, and Davis Polk & Wardwell is its legal counsel.
Part of a continued acquisition push
Braze would rank as Salesforce’s fifth-largest acquisition, according to Axios. It follows the company’s roughly $8 billion purchase of Informatica last year and several other deals in 2026, marking a shift from 2023, when Salesforce dissolved the M&A committee of its board.
Salesforce frames the Braze deal around marketers’ need for agentic systems that can understand customers, make decisions and act in real time. The company said it pursues acquisitions that advance customer success, fit its strategy, accelerate innovation and create long-term value.
Braze went public in 2021 at $65 per share, above the $47.50 deal price.
Considerations for enterprise marketing teams
With closing more than three months away at the earliest, the near-term operational picture for customers of either company is unchanged. Several questions will shape planning once more detail emerges:
- Product overlap with Marketing Cloud. Salesforce has positioned Braze as strengthening Marketing Cloud’s personalization, but has not said how Braze will relate to existing Marketing Cloud engagement and journey products, or whether customers will be steered from one to the other over time. Organizations running both platforms, or evaluating either, may want to ask about roadmap commitments during renewal discussions.
- Independence for non-Salesforce stacks. Many Braze customers run it alongside a cloud data warehouse and non-Salesforce CRM. Magnuson’s commitment to “continue building as Braze” and both companies’ references to an open, composable approach suggest continued support for those architectures, though specific integration and partner commitments have not been detailed.
- Contract timing. Teams with Braze renewals or new procurement decisions falling before or shortly after the expected close may want to clarify pricing, packaging and data-handling terms in writing.
The acquisition is expected to close in Salesforce’s fiscal year 2028, subject to Braze shareholder approval and regulatory approvals.
