Salesforce’s acquisition of Own looks to reinforce data cloud platform

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Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) announced a second proposed acquisition this week when the company revealed it plans to buy Own, a provider of software as a service data protection and activation, for $1.9B.

The announcement came just two days after Salesforce said it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Tenyx, a developer of artificial intelligence voice agents that aid in customer service.

“While unlikely to be a pivotal acquisition, we view the deal as a positive step forward in CRM’s GenAI positioning, especially given data is the new oil,” said Wells Fargo analyst Michael Turrin, in a note on the Own acquisition.

“Core elements of CRM’s GenAI strategy, most notably the Data Cloud foundation and ambition to become a trusted data vendor (via the Einstein Trust Layer), should immediately benefit from Own’s portfolio (data security, backup, recovery, and discovery), which is already well-integrated into the Salesforce ecosystem,” he added.

Bank of America analysts Brad Sills and Carly Liu said the Own acquisition provides a key addition for Salesforce.

“Data security is a key requirement for enterprises when loading more data into Salesforce’s data warehouse (Data Cloud) in preparation for deployment of AI-enabled applications such as Einstein Copilot for sales, service and marketing and cross-channel personalization,” Sills said in an investor note. “We believe this acquisition could provide a catalyst for more data gravity to Data Cloud.”

The acquisition also highlights Salesforce’s financially prudent approach to M&A activity, they added.

BofA reiterated its Buy rating for Salesforce and a hefty price target of $325 on the stock.

Salesforce has Buy rating from both Seeking Alpha analysts and Wall Street analysts. It has a Strong Buy rating from Seeking Alpha’s Quant system, which routinely beats the market.