Salesforce is buying Braze, the company whose software apps like Venmo and Instacart use to decide which push notifications, emails and in-app messages to send you, and when. The deal is worth about $5.66 billion.
Braze started out in 2011 as Appboy, a tool to help mobile app makers keep people coming back. Today it works with about 2,770 brands, including Canva, Dairy Queen and Equinox, and uses AI to pick the right message, channel and timing for each person.
Why Salesforce wants it: AI agents
Salesforce has been betting big on Agentforce, its platform for AI agents that handle sales, service and marketing work. Salesforce says Braze will plug into it, giving those agents a way to act on what customers are doing inside apps, in real time. In plain terms: the software that decides your next notification may soon be an AI agent.
Part of a shopping spree
Braze is Salesforce's latest big AI buy, after a $3.6 billion deal for AI customer service platform Fin earlier this year and its $8 billion acquisition of Informatica last year. Braze shareholders will get $47.50 a share in cash, and the deal is expected to close in Salesforce's next fiscal year, which starts in February. Co-founders Bill Magnuson and Jon Hyman will keep leading the business inside Salesforce's Marketing Cloud.
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Source: Salesforce press release