Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. image: Salesforce

CRM giant Salesforce has announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Vlocity, a San Francisco-based startup that develops industry-specific cloud and mobile software based on Salesforce’s platform. Salesforce is paying $1.33 billion for the company, which had raised $163 million in total funding and was valued at up to $1 billion by its investors. The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of Salesforce’s fiscal 2021.

Vlocity last raised funding in March last year, having secured a $60 million Series C round led by Sutter Hill Ventures and unsurprisingly, Salesforce Ventures. Salesforce has quite a history of acquiring companies it previously invested in. Other examples of this kind include Quip and MapAnything.

In addition to acquiring Vlocity, Salesforce, via its venture arm, also just led $80 million in Series C funding for ServiceMax alongside famed tech investor Silver Lake. ServiceMax, a Pleasanton, California-based developer of field service software built on Salesforce’s platform, made this known in a recent announcement.

Salesforce’s venture arm, what’s known as Salesforce Ventures, has backed numerous software companies, both big names and smaller ones alike. To name a few, the likes of Dropbox, Zoom, DocuSign, GoCardless, Twilio, HubSpot, Domo, Anaplan, Apptus, and Adaptive Insights are Salesforce portfolio investments.

Many of Salesforce’s portfolio companies have had successful acquisitions and public market debuts.

In other Salesforce news, the company’s co-CEO, Keith Block, has announced he’ll be stepping down from that role, less than two years after taking the job. He’ll stay on as an advisor to Marc Benioff, Salesforce’s eccentric founder who is once again becoming the sole CEO of the company.