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Salesforce

Salesforce

CRMsalesforce.com

Salesforce unifies sales, service, marketing, and commerce data on a single AI-powered platform, enabling businesses to deliver personalized customer experiences at scale and maximize the ROI of their advertising and marketing investments.

Last updated Aug 20, 2026 by ATDb automated enrichment · Connections updated Sep 1, 2026

In the news
Founded
1999
HQ
San Francisco, California, United States
Connections
1297

At a glance

Employees
10001+
Funding
Publicly traded (NYSE: CRM); raised ~$65M in pre-IPO funding before its 2004 IPO
Revenue
$34B+ annually (FY2024)
Stock
CRM
1172integrations12competitors26corporate family1partners8acquisitions
Customer Data PlatformMarketing CloudMarketing Automation

About

Global #1 CRM platform by revenue and market share, with a dominant presence in enterprise marketing technology and growing AdTech capabilities through Marketing Cloud and Data Cloud

Salesforce is a global leader in customer relationship management (CRM) software and enterprise cloud computing, founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez in San Francisco, California. The company pioneered the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, fundamentally transforming how businesses access and deploy enterprise software by delivering applications entirely through the cloud. Its core platform spans Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud, and the Einstein AI layer, enabling organizations of all sizes to manage customer relationships, automate workflows, and derive actionable insights from their data. Within the AdTech and MarTech ecosystem, Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a particularly significant offering, providing tools for email marketing, customer journey orchestration, advertising audience management, social media marketing, and data analytics. The acquisition of Datorama (now Marketing Cloud Intelligence) and the Salesforce Data Cloud (formerly Customer Data Platform) further cement its role as a central hub for first-party data activation and cross-channel campaign measurement. Salesforce also operates the Salesforce Advertising Studio, which allows marketers to use CRM data to power digital advertising across platforms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Salesforce holds a dominant market position as the world's leading CRM vendor by revenue and market share, consistently outpacing competitors such as Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Oracle, and HubSpot. With annual revenues exceeding $34 billion and a global workforce of over 70,000 employees, Salesforce serves businesses across virtually every industry vertical. Its AppExchange marketplace, with thousands of third-party integrations, and its robust API ecosystem make it a foundational layer in modern enterprise marketing and advertising technology stacks.

Business model

SaaS

Target market

Enterprise

What they offer

  • Sales Cloud

    Core CRM platform for managing leads, opportunities, accounts, and sales pipelines with AI-driven insights.

  • Marketing Cloud

    Comprehensive marketing automation suite covering email, mobile, social, advertising, and customer journey orchestration.

  • Marketing Cloud Advertising

    Formerly Advertising Studio; enables CRM-powered audience targeting and suppression across Google, Facebook, Instagram, and other ad platforms.

  • Data Cloud

    Formerly Customer Data Platform (CDP); unifies first-party customer data from multiple sources for real-time segmentation and activation.

  • Marketing Cloud Intelligence

    Formerly Datorama; a marketing analytics and reporting platform that aggregates cross-channel campaign data for unified performance measurement.

  • Service Cloud

    Customer service and support platform with case management, live chat, and AI-powered agent assistance.

  • Commerce Cloud

    E-commerce platform for B2C and B2B digital storefronts with personalization and order management capabilities.

  • Einstein AI

    Embedded AI layer across the Salesforce platform providing predictive scoring, recommendations, and generative AI capabilities.

  • Tableau

    Business intelligence and data visualization platform acquired by Salesforce in 2019.

  • Slack

    Team collaboration and messaging platform acquired by Salesforce in 2021, integrated across the Salesforce ecosystem.

  • AppExchange

    Enterprise app marketplace with thousands of third-party integrations and solutions built on the Salesforce platform.

  • MuleSoft

    Integration platform for connecting applications, data, and devices across on-premise and cloud environments.

Key features

Unified CRM and customer data platformAI-powered lead scoring and opportunity insights (Einstein AI)Cross-channel marketing automation and journey orchestrationCRM-based advertising audience targeting and suppressionReal-time first-party data activation via Data CloudCross-channel marketing analytics and attribution (Marketing Cloud Intelligence)Extensive AppExchange ecosystem with 7,000+ integrationsRobust REST and SOAP APIs for custom integrationsLow-code/no-code workflow automation (Flow)Generative AI capabilities via Einstein GPT

Use cases

CRM-powered digital advertising audience targeting on social and search platformsCustomer journey orchestration across email, mobile, web, and paid mediaFirst-party data activation for programmatic advertisingMarketing attribution and cross-channel campaign performance measurementLead nurturing and sales pipeline managementPersonalized e-commerce experiences driven by CRM dataCustomer data unification and identity resolutionB2B account-based marketing (ABM)Customer retention and loyalty program managementAI-driven next-best-action recommendations for sales and marketing

Customer segments

Large EnterpriseMid-MarketFinancial ServicesHealthcare & Life SciencesRetail & Consumer GoodsManufacturingTechnology & SoftwareMedia & CommunicationsGovernment & Public SectorNonprofit Organizations

Tech & specs

Technology stack

Apex (proprietary programming language)Lightning Web Components (LWC)Heroku (cloud application platform)MuleSoft Anypoint PlatformTableau analytics engineEinstein AI / Machine LearningSalesforce Einstein GPT (generative AI)REST and SOAP APIsGraphQL APIHyperforce (next-gen cloud infrastructure on public cloud providers)

Security & compliance

SOC 1 Type IISOC 2 Type IIISO 27001ISO 27017ISO 27018GDPRCCPAHIPAA (with BAA)FedRAMPPCI DSSFINRA

Deployment

Cloud

API

Yes

Corporate history
  1. 1999 · Founded
How it came together
  • 2016·Acquired → Salesforce↗
  • 2018·Acquired → Salesforce↗
  • 2019·Acquired → Salesforce↗
  • 2020·Acquired → Salesforce↗
Year unknown
  • · rebranded↗
  • · rebranded↗
  • · shut down↗
  • · rebranded↗
  • · shut down↗
See the full lineage →
Connection details
View Salesforce’s full portfolio (26) See alternatives to Salesforce See integrations with Salesforce (1172) See acquisitions by Salesforce (8)

Explore further

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