Customer relationship management software provider Salesforce agreed yesterday to acquire Mulesoft, a US-based, publicly-listed application development software producer that was also one of its portfolio companies, at an enterprise value of $6.5bn.
Founded in 2006, Mulesoft has developed a software platform called Anypoint that enables organisations to build networks that integrate applications, data and devices.
The company went public in March 2017 in a $221m initial public offering that gave it a market capitalisation of about $2.9bn, pricing its shares at $17.00 each.
Mulesoft had raised $259m in funding prior to the offering. Salesforce’s corporate venturing unit, Salesforce Ventures, backed its $37m series E round in 2013 and a $50m round in 2014 that valued it at $800m, before returning to lead its $128m series G round the following year.
Other investors in Mulesoft include Cisco Investments, the corporate venturing arm of networking technology provider Cisco, and cloud computing software producer ServiceNow, though none of the corporates are among Mulesoft’s most prominent shareholders.
Venture capital firm Lightspeed Venture Partners was Mulesoft’s largest investor at the time of the IPO, with a 15.3% stake, followed by Hummer Winblad (14.1%), New Enterprise Associates (12.7%), Morgenthaler (6.7%), Sapphire Ventures (6%) and Bay Partners (5.6%).
Salesforce will pay $36.00 and approximately 0.07 of its own shares for each Mulesoft share, adding up to an overall value of $44.89 each. It will fund the deal through a combination of working capital and debt financing, and has secured a commitment from BofA Merrill Lynch for a $3bn bridge loan.
Greg Schott, chairman and chief executive of MuleSoft, said: “With the full power of Salesforce behind us, we have a tremendous opportunity to realise our vision of the application network even faster and at scale.
“Together, Salesforce and MuleSoft will accelerate our customers’ digital transformations enabling them to unlock their data across any application or endpoint.”