Salesforce Signs Deal to Acquire AI Research Startup Listen Labs, Reportedly for About $2B

Salesforce (CRM) said on Tuesday, Sept 29, that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Listen Labs, a startup whose AI agents design customer studies, conduct interviews and synthesize the findings. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of Salesforce's fiscal year 2027, pending regulatory clearance and customary closing conditions. Salesforce said the platform will complement Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud and its broader AI portfolio.

Salesforce did not disclose financial terms. The roughly $2 billion figure widely attached to the deal comes from a Business Insider report on Sept 9 that the companies were in advanced talks at about that price. Listen Labs, founded in 2023 by Alfred Wahlforss and Florian Jungermann, was valued at $500 million after a January Series B led by Ribbit Capital, with Sequoia leading its earlier rounds. It says it can reach a network of more than 50 million research participants in over 120 languages, and it walked away from a $125 million Series C term sheet at a $1.5 billion valuation while talks with Salesforce were under way.

The deal extends a run of AI purchases: Salesforce closed its roughly $3.6 billion acquisition of Fin on Sept 10. Investors did not reward the announcement, with the stock closing down 0.86% at $225.31. At the reported price, Listen Labs would be valued at about 67 times its reported annualized revenue of around $30 million, so the question is whether Salesforce can turn AI-driven customer research into a product its Marketing and Service Cloud customers pay more for. What to watch: disclosure of terms in Salesforce's filings and any integration plans before the deal closes.