BY Richard Summerfield
In a deal designed to bolster its push into artificial intelligence (AI), Salesforce has agreed to acquire cloud data management company Informatica for $8bn.
Under the terms of the deal, which is expected to close early in Salesforce’s fiscal year 2027, subject to the receipt of required regulatory clearances and satisfaction of other customary closing conditions, holders of Informatica’s class A and class B-1 common stock will receive $25 in cash per share held.
Salesforce, which specialises in customer relationship management software, said it would look to combine Informatica’s data catalogue, 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.
“Together, Salesforce and Informatica will create the most complete, agent-ready data platform in the industry,” said Marc Benioff, chair and chief executive of Salesforce. “By uniting the power of Data Cloud, MuleSoft, and Tableau with Informatica’s industry-leading, advanced data management capabilities, we will enable autonomous agents to deliver smarter, safer, and more scalable outcomes for every company, and significantly strengthen our position in the $150 billion-plus enterprise data market.”
“Joining forces with Salesforce represents a significant leap forward in our journey to bring data and AI to life by empowering businesses with the transformative power of their most critical asset – their data,” said Amit Walia, chief executive of Informatica. “We have a shared vision for how we can help organizations harness the full value of their data in the AI era.”
Upon close, Salesforce plans to rapidly integrate Informatica’s technology stack, including data integration, quality, governance and unified metadata for Agentforce, and a single data pipeline with MDM on Data Cloud, seamlessly embedding this “system of understanding” into the Salesforce ecosystem.
“Truly autonomous, trustworthy AI agents need the most comprehensive understanding of their data,” said Steve Fisher, president and chief technology officer of Salesforce. “The combination of Informatica’s advanced catalog and metadata capabilities with our Agentforce platform delivers exactly this. Imagine an AI agent that goes beyond simply seeing data points to understanding their full context – origin, transformation, quality, and governance. This clarity, from a unified Salesforce and Informatica solution, will allow all types of businesses to automate more complex processes and make more reliable AI-driven decisions.”
The deal for Informatica is the latest is a series of high-profile acquisitions made by Salesforce in recent years. The company has completed a number of deals aimed at expanding its product portfolio and gaining market share. It bought Slack in 2021 for $27.7bn, Tableau in 2019 for $15.7bn and MuleSoft in 2018 for $6.5bn.
News: Salesforce to buy Informatica for $8 billion to bolster AI data tools