Salesforce Eliminates Newest Competitor In CRM Technology With $390 Million Purchase Of RelateIQ

Salesforce has agreed to buy RelateIQ, a big data-driven CRM technology platform, for $390 million, Re/code reported Thursday.

RelateIQ is a Palo Alto-based startup that built what it calls "the world's first Relationship Intelligence platform," where it automatically analyzes data from multiple channels - email, calendars, and phone calls - or social media to come up with the best possible sales strategy.

RelateIQ most recently raised $40 million in March at a valuation of $245 million, according to The Wall Street Journal.

RelateIQ's cofounder Steve Loughlin confirmed the deal in a blog post, writing:

RelateIQ is pioneering the next generation of intelligent computing through data science and machine learning. Looking ahead, salesforce.com's acquisition of RelateIQ will extend the value of salesforce.com's #1 CRM apps and platform with a new level of intelligence across sales, service, and marketing.

This deal is in line with Saleforce's recent efforts to ramp up its marketing and sales cloud solutions. They acquired marketing cloud service ExactTarget for $2.5 billion last year and online-marketing firm Buddy Media for $745 million two years ago. In fact, after acquiring ExactTarget last year, Salesforce chairman and CEO Marc Benioff famously said, "The CMO is expected to spend more on technology than the CIO by 2017."