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Salesforce to buy startup Own for $1.9 billion in cash – NBC New York

Salesforce to buy startup Own for .9 billion in cash – NBC New York

  • Salesforce said the Own acquisition will not impact its shareholder return initiatives and will be accretive to free cash flow starting in the second year after the deal closes.
  • Own provides backup support for Salesforce and ServiceNow, as well as Microsoft’s Dynamics software.

Sales force On Thursday, it announced it would pay $1.9 billion in cash for Own Co., a startup that specializes in data backup tools for cloud-based applications. Salesforce plans to close the deal in the quarter ending in January 2025 if regulators approve, a expression.

The startup, previously known as OwnBackup, has a 2021 valuation of $3.35 billion financing roundSalesforce Ventures, the venture arm of the cloud software company, invested in this round and previous rounds.

The proposed deal marks a return to major deals after co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff said the board was buying Salesforce less than two years ago. was eliminating Mergers and acquisitions committee.

Benioff’s statement comes after activist investors bought shares in Salesforce and raised questions about profitability after the company spent money on expensive assets like MuleSoft and Slack but failed to deliver significant growth in return.

The decline in Own’s value reflects a more subdued backdrop for software companies.

In late 2021, investors became less interested in cloud software, which saw a surge in adoption in 2020 thanks to remote work policies introduced after Covid. Central banks raised interest rates to ward off inflation, allowing money-losing cloud companies to focus more on profitability. Businesses looking to reduce IT budgets consolidated their acquisitions, loading up on single-product companies, including startups and public companies.

Anaplan, Avalara, Coupa, Qualtrics, Sumo Logic, and Zendesk have all been customized.

Own, which specializes in helping Salesforce clients, was looking to diversify. In its 2021 funding announcement, it announced its intention to work with Salesforce. Microsoft’s Dynamics enterprise software that competes with Salesforce’s core applications. Support ServiceNow Followed.

Salesforce has also announced plans to acquire smaller startups in recent weeks Spring Forecast And Tennis.

Salesforce said the Own acquisition will not impact Salesforce’s shareholder return initiatives and that the deal will be accretive to free cash flow starting in the second year after the deal closes.

In April, the data management software maker Informatics He said it wasn’t like that. in talks The acquisition is planned after media outlets reported that Salesforce was interested in buying the company for around $10 billion.

“We’ll look at products organically, but yes, we’ll continue to look at products inorganically,” Benioff told analysts on Salesforce’s May earnings call. “But as we promised you, if we’re considering a large-scale acquisition, we’ll make sure it’s not dilutive to our customers, it’s value-added, and it has the right metrics.”

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