Two veteran players in the enterprise software sector have confirmed an acquisition worth billions of dollars.

It was announced that CRM giant Salesforce and “Informatica, a leader in enterprise AI-powered cloud data management, have entered into an agreement for Salesforce to acquire Informatica for approximately $8 billion in equity value, net of Salesforce’s current investment in Informatica.”

Salesforce has made a number of strategic acquisitions in the past decade, including a $15bn purchase of data analytics firm Tableau in 2019, and more recently a $1.9 billion acquisition of data protection and data management solutions specialist called Own Company in September 2024.

Informatica deal

Now Salesforce is acquiring Redwood City (California)-based Informatica, which is an enterprise software veteran, having being founded back in 1993. It made its name known with its data management and data integration capabilities.

Salesforce Ventures and Microsoft had actually invested in Informatica back in 2015, after the firm had been acquired by a company controlled by private equity firm Permira and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for about $5.3 billion.

Informatica was then taken private and delisted from Nasdaq in August 2015, but became publicly traded again on the NYSE in October 2021.

Then in April 2024 it was reported that Salesforce was in advanced talks to acquire Informatica at a price below its then $11 billion market capitalisation.

That deal was eventually abandoned, but now a little over a year later, Salesforce announced its intent to purchase Informatica for about $8 billion, subject to regulatory approval.

Informatica’s shareholders will receive $25 per share, a premium of about 11 percent from last Friday’s closing price of $22.55.

“The planned acquisition will enhance Salesforce’s trusted data foundation critical for deploying powerful and responsible agentic AI,” the two companies stated. “The combination of Informatica’s rich data catalogue, data integration, governance, quality and privacy, metadata management, and Master Data Management (MDM) services with the Salesforce platform will establish a unified architecture for agentic AI – enabling AI agents to operate safely, responsibly, and at scale across the modern enterprise.”

Data management

Informatica will help bolster Salesforce in a number of key areas, including data transparency; data understanding; and data governance.

“We’re excited to acquire Informatica for approximately $8 billion – uniting the world’s #1 AI CRM with the #1 AI-powered MDM and ETL platform,” said Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce.

“This combination brings together Salesforce’s Einstein and Informatica’s CLAIRE AI engines to forge the ultimate AI-data platform — trusted, explainable, and built to scale,” said Benioff. “Together, we’ll supercharge Agentforce, Data Cloud, Tableau, MuleSoft, and Customer 360, enabling autonomous agents to act with intelligence, context, and confidence across every enterprise. This is a transformational step in delivering enterprise-grade AI that is safe, responsible, and deeply integrated with the world’s data.”

“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,” added Amit Walia, CEO of Informatica. “We have a shared vision for how we can help organizations harness the full value of their data in the AI era.”

Salesforce added it will begin “the rapid integration of Informatica’s premier data management capabilities with Data Cloud is a timely opportunity to further Salesforce’s leadership in the AI revolution.”

Both companies’ boards have approved the deal, which is expected to close early in Salesforce’s fiscal 2027.

There is so far, no word on possible job losses, but Informatica had a worked of approximately 5,200 staff in 2024, compared to the 14,340 staff at Salesforce.