Salesforce to acquire AI market-research startup Listen Labs in multibillion-dollar deal
Salesforce has agreed to purchase Listen Labs, an AI-driven market-research firm founded by Alfred Wahlforss, in a transaction reported to be around $2 billion.
In a swiftly progressing transaction, Salesforce has signed a deal to acquire Listen Labs, an AI-powered market-research company founded in 2023 by Alfred Wahlforss after meeting co-founder Florian Jüngermann at Harvard. The firm, which earlier secured a $69 million financing round that valued it at $500 million and later pursued a $125 million round that never closed, attracted Salesforce’s interest while still fundraising.
Wahlforss says a meeting with Salesforce chief Marc Benioff, a personal inspiration, led to the acquisition, though the purchase price remains private; one outlet earlier reported a figure near $2 billion. Listen Labs’ platform automates participant recruitment, interview execution and analysis across more than 120 languages, leveraging a network of over 50 million respondents and serving customers such as Microsoft and Anthropic.
Salesforce plans to embed the technology in its marketing, customer-service and AI offerings, while Wahlforss and Jüngermann will continue leading the business within Salesforce AI Labs. Wahlforss expressed enthusiasm on LinkedIn, calling the past years “the most fun” of his life.
Why it matters
The deal shows how major cloud firms are expanding AI capabilities into market research, reshaping how companies gather consumer insights.
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