Making a strong push toward enhancing its analytics capabilities, world’s leading CRM platform provider, salesforce.com, Inc. CRM, recently acquired a small start-up called MinHash for an undisclosed amount. The news was first reported by TechCrunch and later confirmed by the company.
Palo Alto-based MinHash was founded in 2014 by four persons including two engineers, Naren Chitter and Jayesh Govindarajan, who previously worked at Oracle Corp. ORCL and eBay Inc. EBAY, respectively. Chitter served at eBay's Search Engine Group for over five years and Govindarajan has been associated with Oracle and Avaya for nearly a decade.
MinHash claims to have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) platform, named AILA, through which one can scan thousands of media posts and uncover the emerging trends, thereby helping marketers to respond quickly. Once this platform spots the latest trends, it automatically creates campaigns via integrated texts, images, hashtags and URLs.
According to MinHash’s website, its services will be shut down on Jan 21, 2016. All the four members will join Salesforce’s search and data science teams and likely rebuild a version of the platform soon.
Over the past few years, Salesforce has been aggressively trying to build its capabilities in the data analytics segment with the launch of Wave Analytics Platform last year and the Relatel IQ buyout.
Further, in May, the company acquired a smart calendar app Tempo from a start-up named, Tempo AI Inc. The app acts as a virtual calendar, easily integrating with calendar, email, contacts and other apps on users’ smartphones and offering relevant information and suggestions.
Therefore, we believe that the recent MinHash acquisition is a step in this direction, benefiting both salespeople and marketers. The acquisition should therefore help Salesforce boost revenues.
Investments in start-ups have always been one of Salesforce’s key growth strategies. Over the past few years, the company has invested in several start-ups, be it through acquisitions or partnerships. According to a report by TechCrunch, since 2009, Salesforce Ventures, the company’s investment arm, has invested about $500 million in more than 150 enterprise start-ups.
Further, it should be noted that Salesforce Ventures announced this October its plan to invest $100 million specifically in European start-ups. With this the investment arm intends to fuel cloud innovation and gain customers in the region.
We believe that Salesforce’s sustained focus on expanding its business through strategic acquisitions and investments will drive growth over the long run.
Salesforce currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Another well-ranked stock in the broader technology sector is Cadence Design Systems Inc. CDNS which sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
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