Braze vs Customer.io

Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Braze

Salesforce has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Braze, a New York-based customer engagement platform, for approximately $5.66 billion. Braze shareholders will receive $47.50 in cash per Class A share. The acquisition aims to enhance Salesforce's AI-powered marketing capabilities by integrating Braze's real-time customer engagement technology with Marketing Cloud, Data 360, Customer 360, and Agentforce. Braze processes real-time customer data from mobile apps, websites, and other digital channels, enabling personalized communications via email, SMS, WhatsApp, and mobile apps. The platform handles trillions of messages annually and includes BrazeAI for optimizing content, offers, channels, and send times. The deal, expected to close in Salesforce's fiscal year 2028, is part of Salesforce's recent buying spree, including Qualified Inc., Contentful, and Intercom. Braze, co-founded by Bill Magnuson and Jon Hyman, serves about 2,770 enterprise customers, including Canva, Dairy Queen, Equinox, Instacart, Urban Outfitters, and Venmo. Salesforce intends to maintain Braze as a separate brand and continue existing customer and partner relationships.

• Salesforce signs definitive agreement to acquire Braze for approximately $5.66 billion.
• Braze shareholders will receive $47.50 in cash per Class A share.
• Acquisition expected to close in Salesforce's fiscal year 2028.

Salesforce announces $5.66B deal for Braze, stock soars 50%

Salesforce has announced a definitive agreement to acquire customer engagement platform Braze for approximately $5.7 billion in cash, translating to $47.50 per share, a roughly 58% premium over Braze's last closing price of $30.04. The deal, expected to close in fiscal 2028, is a strategic move to accelerate the time between customer signals and marketing actions, integrating Braze with Salesforce's Marketing Cloud, Data 360, Customer 360, and Agentforce. Braze, with about 2,770 customers including Canva and Venmo, reported strong growth. The acquisition aims to strengthen Salesforce's AI marketing capabilities, though integration risks remain. Following the announcement, Braze shares surged while Salesforce shares dipped slightly.

• Salesforce agreed to acquire Braze for approximately $5.7 billion in cash at $47.50 per share.
• The deal price is a 58% premium over Braze's closing price of $30.04 on Monday.
• The transaction is expected to close in fiscal 2028, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.

Made for this: How Braze is providing new ways to build, support, and extend your campaigns

New blog posts include product announcements from Forge 2026, Torchie Awards winners, and a spotlight on BrazeAI Decisioning Studio™ Go.

Claude Code Growth OS: Open-Source Agentic System

Aakash Gupta's Growth Podcast episode features James McAulay, who shares his open-source 'Growth OS' built on Claude Code. The system integrates tools like PostHog, Firecrawl, DataForSEO, and Lighthouse CLI to automate SEO audits, growth experiments, and PRD creation. McAulay highlights how growth professionals can run experiments without engineers, using AI agents and MCP. Key features include structured experiment templates, daily standups, weekly retros, and self-improving routines. The OS is designed to be installed via a simple command and works with Claude Code, Codex, Hermes, and OpenClaw.

• James McAulay open-sourced the 'Growth OS' on GitHub.
• The system runs on Claude Code and integrates tools like PostHog, Firecrawl, DataForSEO.
• It automates SEO audits, growth experiments, and PRD creation.

Freshworks CPO Explains AI PDLC and Product Builder Role

Srini Raghavan, while serving as Chief Product Officer at Freshworks, describes how the company moved from a six-month to a two-week release cycle by adopting a data-first approach and an AI-powered product development lifecycle (AI PDLC). Freshworks built a knowledge hub called Prism (design system, coding standards, single repo) and an AI harness that runs in Cursor with model-agnostic agents and an evals phase. The workflow uses Databricks (their data lake “Bel”) for evidence, and Grok models for fast agent responses. Raghavan argues the traditional PM/designer/engineer assembly-line roles will shift toward a single Product Builder role. Since recording the episode, Raghavan has left Freshworks; his prior roles include CPO at RingCentral, SVP at Five9, and Director at Cisco.

• Freshworks reported 2026 revenue of $960M and is described as a $3.4B SaaS company with over 75,000 customers and 4,000 employees.
• When Srini Raghavan joined as Chief Product Officer, Freshworks moved its release cycle from six months to two weeks.
• Freshworks created a knowledge hub called Prism (design system, coding standards, single repo) and an AI PDLC that inserts a governed agent into each lifecycle phase plus an evals phase.