Coming off another strong quarter, Salesforce has no “near-term” plans for large acquisition deals, according to co-CEOs Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor. Instead, the company wants to focus on integrating recent acquisitions such as Tableau, Mulesoft and Slack.
Salesforce continued to show its characteristic growth, exceeding expectations with fiscal year revenue of $26.49 billion, up 25% year-over-year. The company also raised its revenue guidance for the upcoming fiscal year to $32.1 billion.
Combined, the Tableau and Mulesoft data business grew 23.5% year-over-year, and Mulesoft was part of some of Salesforce’s largest deals last quarter, Taylor said on the company's earnings call. The acquisition of Mulesoft started off rocky, and although Salesforce is now starting to “realize the benefits of the go-to-market organizational changes we implemented last year,” according to CFO Amy Weaver, the company still expects slow returns.
For Salesforce right now, however, it’s all about Slack. The company’s integration of Slack “remains our top priority as a management team,” said Taylor. “We don’t have any plans for material M&A in the near term; Slack is our focus.”
Benioff reiterated that message, calling Slack the “most strategic initiative in the company,” and one that is going to take quite some time for the company to digest. “I don't really see us doing any kind of strategic acquisition for some time until we can get our hands fully around Slack,” he said.
That doesn’t rule out all M&A in the future, as Benioff also said the company “continues to look at tactical M&A.” SaaS startups looking at lower post-pandemic valuations might still want to give Salesforce a call.
Climate TRACE's data show emissions at the facility-level.Image: Climate TRACE