Salesforce Closes Fin Deal as It Reportedly Weighs $2 Billion Listen Labs Buy

Update, Sept. 29: Salesforce signed a definitive agreement to acquire Listen Labs. Financial terms were not disclosed, and the deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of Salesforce’s fiscal 2027, subject to regulatory clearance.

Salesforce has completed its acquisition of Fin, the customer agent company formerly known as Intercom, and is reportedly in talks to buy AI market research startup Listen Labs for around $2 billion.

Salesforce announced the Fin close on Sept. 10. The deal brings Fin’s customer agent platform, its AI team and a customer base of more than 30,000 companies to Salesforce. Fin’s agent resolves queries end-to-end across live chat, email, WhatsApp, SMS, voice and Slack, with an average resolution rate of 76%, according to the company.

“The #1 customer agent meets the #1 CRM,” said Marc Benioff, Salesforce chair and CEO. “The future of customer service is autonomous, intelligent, and built on trust.” Fin CEO and co-founder Eoghan McCabe said: “The big strategic benefit of our decision to join Salesforce is magnitudes more businesses and their customers that we can bring it to.” Fin will sit inside Salesforce’s AI Labs.

Listen Labs talks

The Listen Labs discussions were first reported by Business Insider, which said they are not finalized and may not result in a deal.

Listen Labs recently signed a term sheet for a $125 million Series C at a $1.5 billion valuation, with Menlo Ventures set to lead, but walked away before the round closed, TechCrunch reported, citing several people with knowledge of the matter. VCs told TechCrunch that backing out of a signed term sheet is rare and generally frowned upon, and that the financing likely collapsed because of the Salesforce talks. If those talks fall through, several VCs said they expect Listen Labs to return to market targeting a valuation of $2 billion or more.

The three-year-old startup uses AI to write survey questions and interview customers over audio or video, then packages the conversations into reports and slide decks of the kind human market researchers produce. Its customers include Microsoft, Canva, Anthropic and Sweetgreen. Co-founders Florian Jüngermann and Alfred Wahlforss met while pursuing master’s degrees at Harvard.

Listen Labs has about $30 million in annualized revenue, according to TechCrunch’s sources. A $2 billion price would be roughly 67 times revenue, which a person with experience negotiating exits to Salesforce told TechCrunch the company may decide is too steep. In late January, Listen Labs was valued at $500 million when it announced a $69 million Series B led by Ribbit Capital, with Sequoia, Conviction and Pear VC participating.

Competitors in AI customer research include Simile, which closed a $200 million Series B at a $2 billion valuation in late July, along with Outset, Keplar and Aaru. Listen Labs, Salesforce and Menlo Ventures did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s requests for comment.