Salesforce has acquired cloud data management firm Informatica in an $8 billion equity deal, marking a major move in its push to strengthen its AI and data infrastructure capabilities.

The announcement, made Tuesday, comes about a year after early rumors of the acquisition sent both companies’ stock prices sliding. At the time, Informatica denied it was for sale, but a lot can change in a year.

Under the terms of the deal, Salesforce will pay $25 in cash per share for Informatica’s Class A and Class B-1 common stock, adjusting for its prior investment in the company.

Informatica was founded in 1993 and works with more than 5,000 customers across more than 100 countries. The company had a $7.1 billion market cap at the time of publication.

This acquisition will help bolster Salesforce’s agentic AI ambitions, the company’s press release stated, by giving the company more data infrastructure and governance to help its AI agents run more “safely, responsibly, and at scale across the modern enterprise.”

“Together, we’ll supercharge Agentforce, Data Cloud, Tableau, MuleSoft, and Customer 360, enabling autonomous agents to act with intelligence, context, and confidence across every enterprise,” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in the press release. “This is a transformational step in delivering enterprise-grade AI that is safe, responsible, and deeply integrated with the world’s data.”

The path to this deal began in April 2024, when reports surfaced that Salesforce was eyeing Informatica. The market reaction was swift — both companies’ shares dipped on fears of a difficult integration or strategic mismatch. Informatica later issued a public statement denying any sale discussions. But what once seemed unlikely is now official.

Informatica isn’t the first data management company Salesforce has acquired in the past year. In September, Salesforce snapped up Own Company for $1.9 billion in cash.

“Data security has never been more critical, and Own’s proven expertise and products will enhance our ability to offer robust data protection and management solutions to our customers,” Salesforce general manager Steve Fisher said in a press release at the time.

TechCrunch has reached out to Salesforce for more information.