Salesforce to buy marketing analytics startup Krux for $700 mn

US cloud-software giant Salesforce.com Inc yesterday struck a deal to buy San Francisco-based marketing-data and analytics startup Krux, in a $700-million cash and stock deal.

''Krux is a leading data management platform that unifies, segments and activates audiences to increase engagement with users, prospects and customers. Following the acquisition, Krux will be a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company,'' Salesforce said in its statement.

Founded in 2010, Krux had raised over $48 million in a series of funding rounds from investors like Accel Partners, Sapphire Ventures, Time Warner Investments, Visionnaire Ventures, Temasek and others.

Krux helps more than 200 companies to capture, unify, and activate data signatures across devices like desktop, mobile, tablet and others in real time.

Through its data management platform, Krux serves as the Intelligent Marketing Hub that helps its customers deliver breakthrough media, content, strengthen brands, and improve business performance.

Krux interacts with more than 3 billion browsers and devices every month, supports more than 200 billion data collection events, and processes more than 5 billion CRM records.

Its clients include Kellogg, ConAgra, Jet Blue, Mondelez, Time Warner, Meredith and Peugeot-PSA.

Salesforce has recently been on an acquisition spree and has spent nearly $4 billion on buying Demandware, Quip, and BeyondCore.

Salesforce had aggressively bid for LinkedIn in June, but the professional networking site opted to be bought by Microsoft for $26.2 billion although Salesforce had made a higher bid than Microsoft (See: Five companies considered acquiring LinkedIn). 

It is also rumoured to be keen on buying Twitter, which has a market cap of $17 billion.