Mirror Review
May 28th, 2025
Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) announced its plan to acquire Informatica (NYSE: INFA), a leader in AI-powered cloud data management, in a $8 billion deal.
This move shows Salesforce’s serious commitment to boosting its artificial intelligence (AI) and data management capabilities.
As part of the agreement, Salesforce will pay $25 in cash per share for Informatica’s Class A and Class B-1 common stock.
At its core, the Salesforce Informatica acquisition is about helping Salesforce deliver more powerful, secure, and responsible AI tools for businesses by integrating Informatica’s advanced data platform.
What You Need to Know About the
- Price Tag: Approximately $8 billion in equity value.
- Offer: $25 per share in cash for Informatica stockholders.
- Goal: To support Salesforce’s AI CRM with enhanced data integration, governance, and understanding capabilities.
- Funding: The acquisition will be funded through a mix of cash on hand and new debt.
- Timeline: The deal is expected to close early in Salesforce’s fiscal year 2027, pending regulatory approvals.
- Approval: Stockholders representing about 63% of Informatica’s voting power have already approved the transaction.
Here’s Why Salesforce is Buying Informatica
The core motivation behind the Salesforce Informatica deal is helping Salesforce deliver smarter, more reliable AI tools by building a strong foundation of trusted data.
Salesforce is diving deeper into the world of AI with platforms like Agentforce. But AI can’t work well without clean, organized, and understandable data.
That’s where Informatica comes in. Their expertise in managing and organizing huge amounts of data is precisely what Salesforce needs to make its AI sharper and more effective.
Salesforce Chair and CEO, Marc Benioff, put it perfectly: “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”.
Here’s how Informatica adds value to Salesforce’s AI strategy:
1. Unified Architecture for Agentic AI:
By combining Informatica’s comprehensive data management services (integration, cataloging, governance, quality, MDM) with Salesforce’s platform, the goal is to create a single system where AI agents can operate safely and effectively.
This is crucial for developing “autonomous AI agents” that can handle complex tasks.
2. Enhanced Data Transparency:
Informatica’s tools provide clarity on data origins, changes, and usage, which is vital for compliance and building trust in AI.
3. Deeper Data Understanding:
The integration aims to allow AI agents to interpret and act on enterprise data with better context, combining Informatica’s metadata with Salesforce’s data model.
As Salesforce CTO Steve Fisher put it, “Imagine an AI agent that goes beyond simply seeing data points to understand their full context… This clarity… will allow all types of businesses to automate more complex processes and make more reliable AI-driven decisions”.
4. Robust Data Governance:
Ensuring data is standardized, accurate, and secure is key to responsible AI, and Informatica’s MDM and quality controls directly address this.
5. Boosting the Salesforce Ecosystem:
The acquisition is set to enhance several Salesforce products:
Data Cloud: Strengthens its role as a Customer Data Platform (CDP).
Agentforce: Provides a critical foundation for AI agents.
Customer 360: Enables more personalized customer experiences.
MuleSoft: Ensures data flowing through APIs is trustworthy.
Tableau: Delivers richer, context-driven insights.
Background of the Salesforce Informatica Deal
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time Salesforce and Informatica have discussed an acquisition. The two companies were reportedly in talks back in April 2024, but couldn’t agree on the right price at the time.
Fast forward to 2025, and discussions came up again in early April. It wasn’t just Salesforce showing interest; firms like Thoma Bravo and Cloud Software Group were also eyeing Informatica.
Ultimately, Salesforce sealed the deal, marking its biggest acquisition since buying Slack in 2021 for $28 billion.
Moreover, in recent years, Salesforce has pulled back on big acquisitions due to pressure from investors to focus on profits.
But this time, Salesforce assures that this acquisition follows its “methodical, patient, and decisive” approach, targeting key assets to drive growth.
How Salesforce is Paying and What it Expects
Salesforce is funding this major purchase through a combination of cash from its reserves and new debt.
Furthermore, Salesforce believes this move will start boosting its non-GAAP operating margins and earnings per share from the second year after the deal closes, due to cost savings and increased sales.
And for investors worried about dividends or buybacks, Salesforce has stated that its capital return program won’t be disrupted by this acquisition.
Looking Ahead
Salesforce has big plans for quickly integrating Informatica’s technology, embedding it as a “system of understanding” right within its existing ecosystem. This means even better insights, more automation, and more personalized experiences for customers.
At the same time, Salesforce will continue to support and invest in Informatica’s current products and its network of partners.
The Salesforce Informatica acquisition is a significant gamble on the future of AI for businesses.
By bringing Informatica’s top-notch data management capabilities into the fold, Salesforce aims to provide businesses with the trusted, well-governed, and context-rich data foundation they need to truly unlock the full power of AI agents.
