What Companies Does Salesforce Own?

Salesforce is a behemoth. Valued at more than $216 billion and anchored by its customer relationship management (CRM) service, the company has an iron grip on the enterprise software and application market.

However, that's not all the San Francisco-based company offers. It is also a go-to source for enterprise applications that streamline marketing automation, analytics, app development and more.

To grow into new markets, Salesforce has pursued an aggressive acquisition strategy that saw it buy up its first company in 2006, just seven years after it was founded.

Led by founder and CEO Marc Benioff and his core lieutenants, Salesforce has pursued an aggressive acquisition strategy that led to its purchase of at least 69 over the last 16 years—21 of which Salesforce lists on its website.

Many of the software giant's purchases are eventually folded into its own core platforms to provide new services, fill gaps and enhance existing functionalities. For instance, Salesforce bought out SteelBrick for $360 million in 2015 and rebranded the company just a year later as Salesforce CPQ, the company's cloud-based quote processing and invoicing application.

However, the company has allowed some of its other big-name buys to keep their brand names and operate seemingly independently, like Slack or Tableau.

Check out our roundup of ten of Salesforce's largest and most impactful acquisitions in the past decade.

Slack

Salesforce shot into the headlines in July 2021 after announcing it would spend $27.7 billion to bring the popular workplace messaging app Slack into its orbit. Founded in 2009, Slack has become almost synonymous with instant messaging at work and had 12 million daily active users as of 2019 (the last time it publicly reported the number). Currently, the tech titan is allowing Slack to stay independent, but the service's tech will also be integrated into Salesforce's Customer 360 platform. Marc Benioff has previously referred to the Slack and Customer 360 integration as "the new operating system for a new way to work."

Tableau

Salesforce officially acquired Tableau in August 2019 for $15.7 billion. Founded in 2003, the interactive data visualization software company presented Salesforce with a litany of cross-functional integrations for its Customer 360 and Einstein data analytics products. Unlike some of its other acquisitions, Salesforce has allowed Tableau to operate independently under its own brand. In 2021, the company lost longtime CEO Adam Selipsky, who left to lead Amazon’s AWS division after Andy Jassy took over as Amazon's CEO in 2021. Currently, the company is led by Mark Nelson.

Quip

Quip is a collaborative productivity software suite that Salesforce bought for $750 million in 2016. The company, which was founded just four years earlier, has been integrated into the tech giant's core product and offers its CRM users to embed documents in workflows, collaborate in real-time and design templates. Quip's offering combined with Salesforce's data really came into its own in the remote work era and spurred 62% more sign-ups in 2020. But that's not the only way the companies have integrated, as Quip co-founder Bret Taylor is now Salesforce's Co-CEO and is widely seen as Benioff's sole successor.

MuleSoft

In 2018 Salesforce officially gobbled up MuleSoft, a platform for building application networks. The $6.5 billion deal was the company's biggest ever at the time and provided Salesforce with the tools to help clients integrate data that is stored in a wide array of systems, whether it's in the cloud or legacy on-premises software. The move, which initially received skepticism from Salesforces's then co-CEO Keith Block, has allowed Salesforce to expand its utility and help companies through their own digital transformations.

Acumen Solutions

Acumen Solutions joined the Salesforce family in February 2021 and brought a wealth of consulting knowledge to the tech company. Before the deal, Acumen was one of Salesforce's top 10 partners and specialized in helping companies adapt their operations to Salesforce's platform. The $570 million deal, while not significant compared to some of the company's other blockbuster acquisitions, is poised to allow Salesforce to better control the experience of its customers and improve its ability to onboard large clients.

Vlocity

In February 2020, Salesforce officially closed its $1.3 billion acquisition of Vlocity. The startup provided industry-specific cloud and mobile software for government organizations communications, media and entertainment, energy and utilities, insurance and health companies. Since being brought into Salesforce's fold, Vlocity's tech has been integrated into Salesforce's offerings to expand the reach into more industries. The venture's founder and CEO, David Schmaier, now serves as Salesforce's President and Chief Product Officer.

Demandware

Salesforce completed its acquisition of enterprise cloud commerce solutions provider Demandware in 2016. Upon closing its $2.8 billion deal with Salesforce, Demandware became Salesforce Commerce Cloud, its enterprise cloud platform for retailers.

ExactTarget

ExactTarget provided companies with on-demand one-to-one email marketing software applications and was acquired by Salesforce in 2013. At the time of the deal, ExactTarget's platform was used by more than 6,000 companies, including Coca-Cola, Gap and Nike. After the sale was completed, ExactTarget was rolled into Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

Buddy Media

Salesforce completed its acquisition of social media marketing platform Buddy Media, allowing it to expand the reach of its own marketing products. The deal, valued at $649 million, built on Salesforce's 2011 acquisition of social media monitoring platform Radian6 and gave the company a solid social media publishing and analytics suite.

Krux

Salesforce bought Krux, a CRM traffic and data management platform, in 2016 for $800 million. Just six months later, Salesforce transformed Krux into Salesforce’s data management platform (DMP) and absorbed it into its Marketing Cloud team. Krux's technology has subsequently allowed Salesforce clients to use customer data, as well as external sources of interaction data, to optimize online advertisements.