Salesforce has acquired New Jersey-based data management and protection solutions provider Own Company for $1.9 billion in cash.
The acquisition would be Salesforce's largest deal since it acquired Slack for $27.7 billion in 2021. The company reportedly explored buying data management software company Informatica earlier this year but ultimately fell through.
Salesforce GM Steve Fisher said in a press release that the acquisition was ” [Salesforce’s] It's our commitment to providing secure end-to-end solutions that protect our customers' most valuable data.”
“Data security has never been more important, and Own's proven expertise and products will strengthen our ability to provide powerful data protection and management solutions to our customers,” continued Fisher.
Own was founded in 2015 as OwnBackup (it rebranded last October) and offers a range of data backup tools and services for enterprises, including automated backups and disaster recovery.
The original idea was to extract and back up data from corporate applications using open APIs from SaaS vendors, including Salesforce. Besides Salesforce apps, Own supported SaaS apps hosted on AWS and Microsoft.
Founded by Ariel Berkman, Daniel Gershuny, and Eran Cohen, Own had successfully raised $507.3 million from investors including Tiger Global, BlackRock, Insight Partners, Vertex Ventures, and Salesforce's own Salesforce Ventures prior to today's acquisition, according to Crunchbase.
As of August 2021, Own was valued at $3.35 billion.
That's a high valuation, but perhaps justified given the sheer size of the data backup and recovery sector: According to market analytics firm KBV Research, the global data backup and recovery sector is expected to be worth $12.9 billion in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 10.9% from 2017 to last year.
The reasons for the growth are myriad.
Companies face increasing threats related to ransomware, as well as the risk of losing large amounts of data due to data center disasters, such as the fire that hit OVH in France in 2021. Data management-related regulations, such as the EU AI law, are coming into force in some countries, many of which come with strict data retention and provenance provisions.
Own now has nearly 7,000 customers and hundreds of employees. The company offers a portfolio of data archiving, seeding, security and analytics capabilities that have expanded significantly beyond its initial offering. Own CEO Sam Gutman said Own complements Salesforce's existing data management tools and “is a game changer for Salesforce.”[ing] Salesforce offers a more comprehensive set of data protection and loss prevention products.”
It's a natural evolution for Own: As my colleague Ron Miller has previously written , a large part of the company's backup and recovery business revolves around the Salesforce ecosystem.
“We are pleased to work with Salesforce, who shares our commitment to data resiliency and security,” Gutman said in a statement. “By joining forces with Salesforce, we will deliver even greater value to our customers by driving innovation, protecting their data, and ensuring compliance in the world's most complex and highly regulated industries.”
Salesforce expects the transaction to close in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.
Own could signal a return to big acquisitions for Salesforce a year after it said it was stepping away from M&A following pressure from activist investors (the company even went so far as to disband its M&A committee). In recent weeks, Salesforce has closed smaller deals, acquiring startups PredictSpring, an omnichannel commerce platform, and Tenyx, which makes AI-powered voice agents.