Braze (NASDAQ:BRZE), a customer engagement and personalized marketing software provider, closed at $45.57, up 51.70%. Salesforce’s takeover agreement drove the move, and investors will be watching for the deal’s completion over the coming year with a $47.50 cash payout. Trading volume reached 64.6M shares, coming in about 1,799% above its three-month average of 3.4M shares. Braze IPO’d in 2021 and has fallen 51% since going public.
How the markets moved today
The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) closed at 7,711, up 0.26%, while the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX:^IXIC) finished at 26,425, down 0.02%. Among software application platform peers, Klaviyo (NYSE:KVYO) closed at $19.59, up 11.82%, while Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) closed at $242.44, essentially flat, after its Braze acquisition announcement drew attention across customer-engagement software.
What this means for investors
Salesforce is back to its acquisitive ways, agreeing to acquire real-time messaging and AI marketing specialist Braze for $47.50 per share in cash, or $5.66 billion altogether. This deal follows Salesforce’s acquisition of AI customer service upstart Fin for $3.6 billion in June.
Now partnered with Anthropic, CRM behemoth Salesforce has highlighted its desire to put AI at the core of its offerings, and Braze should add to that nicely. Salesforce is buying BRZE stock for roughly 7 times trailing sales — and the young marketing company was yet to reach profitability — so it may take a few quarters, if not years, to see if the deal pays off.
BRZE shares now trade within 4% of CRM’s offering price, so barring a competing bid or an unforeseen regulatory hurdle popping up between now and the deal’s 2027 close, the stock may not move too much from here.
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