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Salesforce

77 major milestones

American cloud-based software company providing CRM, sales, service, marketing automation, commerce, analytics and AI; headquartered in San Francisco.

Latest Valuation
$153,000,000,000
3 Funding Rounds

Company Timeline

Years 0-4

First prototype completed

Salesforce's first prototype (web-based CRM) is developed and shown internally; first prototype publicly noted as 'launched' in November 1999.

Year 0 • 1999

Move to Rincon Center office and early hires

Company expands from apartment and leases an 8,000 sq ft office at Rincon Center; grows to ~40 employees by year-end.

Year 0 • 1999

Company founded in San Francisco apartment

Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Frank Dominguez and Dave Moellenhoff incorporate Salesforce and begin building the first CRM prototype in a one-bedroom apartment on Telegraph Hill.

Year 0 • 1999

Move to One Market Street

Salesforce relocates headquarters from Rincon Center to larger offices at One Market Street in San Francisco.

Year 1 • 2000

Dot-com downturn: workforce reduction

Salesforce is affected by dot-com crash and lays off roughly 20% of its workforce.

Year 1 • 2000

Public launch: 'The End of Software' event

Salesforce officially launches at the Regency Theater with a marketing campaign themed 'The End of Software' (1,500 attendees).

Year 1 • 2000

Global expansion and customer growth

Salesforce opens headquarters in Dublin and Tokyo and surpasses 3,000 customers, becoming one of the fastest-growing CRM companies.

Year 2 • 2001

Marc Benioff named CEO and Chairman

Marc Benioff is named Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Salesforce.

Year 2 • 2001

Revenue milestone: ~$5.4M

Company reports $5.4 million in revenue for the fiscal year ending Jan 31, 2001.

Year 2 • 2001

Rapid customer and user growth

By year-end Salesforce reports ~5,740 customers and ~70,000 users across 107 countries, in multiple currencies and languages.

Year 3 • 2002

sForce 2.0 (on-demand app service) launched

Salesforce unveils sForce 2.0—the industry's early on-demand application service—at Dreamforce.

Year 4 • 2003

First Dreamforce conference

Salesforce hosts inaugural Dreamforce at Westin St. Francis with just over 1,000 registered attendees and 52 presentations.

Year 4 • 2003

Revenue approaches $100M and IPO filing

Salesforce reports nearly $100 million in revenue for the year and files to go public in December 2003.

Year 4 • 2003

Years 5-9

Initial public offering (IPO)

Salesforce completes IPO on NYSE under CRM, raising $110 million at $11 per share.

Year 5 • 2004Valuation: $1,000,000,000

Public developer and ISV ecosystem grows

By mid-2000s thousands of developers and hundreds of ISVs are building on Salesforce technologies and AppExchange, accelerating ecosystem growth.

Year 6 • 2005

Customer and user scale milestone (2005)

By end of 2005 Salesforce reports ~20,500 customers and nearly 400,000 unique users; employees exceed 1,300.

Year 6 • 2005

AppExchange launched

Salesforce introduces AppExchange, a marketplace for third-party apps and services to extend Salesforce functionality.

Year 6 • 2005

Apex & Visualforce development

Salesforce develops Apex (on-demand programming language) and Visualforce (UI framework), enabling custom apps and strengthening its PaaS roadmap.

Year 7 • 2006

Sendia acquisition and mobile push

Salesforce acquires wireless/mobile technology startup Sendia (to bootstrap mobile offerings) and launches AppExchange Mobile.

Year 7 • 2006

IdeaExchange launches; Force.com announced

IdeaExchange (customer idea forum) launches; Force.com platform plans announced to let developers build apps on Salesforce platform.

Year 8 • 2007

Force.com released and revenue >$1B run rate emerging

Force.com (platform-as-a-service) released; Salesforce edges toward $1B revenue threshold—later documented as first cloud vendor to cross $1B in annual revenue.

Year 9 • 2008

Added to S&P 500

Salesforce is added to the S&P 500 index (Sept 2008), reflecting its scale and public market status.

Year 9 • 2008

Years 10-14

Service Cloud launched

Salesforce launches Service Cloud to bring customer service and support automation to the platform.

Year 10 • 2009

First iPhone enterprise app and $1B+ revenue

Salesforce produces first Force.com app for iPhone and becomes the first cloud company to breach $1B in annual revenue (fiscal figures around this period).

Year 10 • 2009

Scale metrics: ~92k customers, 5,000 employees

At fiscal year-end Salesforce reports >92,000 customers and ~5,000 employees; revenue ~ $1.66B (FY ending Jan 31, 2011).

Year 11 • 2010

Heroku acquisition (PaaS expansion)

Salesforce agrees to acquire Heroku (Ruby app PaaS) to support next-generation app developers.

Year 11 • 2010

Chatter launched; Radian6 acquired

Chatter enterprise collaboration product launches; Salesforce acquires social listening firm Radian6 (reported acquisition ~$326M–$340M).

Year 12 • 2011

Buddy Media acquisition

Salesforce acquires Buddy Media (social publishing/advertising tech) to strengthen marketing cloud capabilities.

Year 13 • 2012

Marketing Cloud assembled & unveiled

Following acquisitions (Radian6, Buddy Media, ExactTarget), Salesforce unveils its Marketing Cloud at Dreamforce to combine marketing tools and social analytics.

Year 13 • 2012

ExactTarget acquisition (Marketing Cloud)

Salesforce completes its largest acquisition to date at that time, ExactTarget, for $2.5 billion to supercharge Marketing Cloud.

Year 14 • 2013

Salesforce1 platform launched (mobile-first)

Salesforce launches Salesforce1 platform enabling users and developers to run Salesforce and custom apps from mobile devices.

Year 14 • 2013

Years 15-19

Trailhead learning platform launched

Salesforce launches Trailhead, a free online learning platform to train admins, developers and users; later reaches millions of learners.

Year 15 • 2014

1.5M developers and $5B annual revenue milestone

Salesforce reports 1.5 million registered developers and achieves $5B in annual revenue faster than any other enterprise software company to that date.

Year 15 • 2014

Salesforce Tower London opens

Expansion of branded Salesforce Tower footprint with an opening in London (international office/branding milestone).

Year 15 • 2014

Lightning Experience and IoT Cloud launched

Salesforce unveils Lightning Experience (modernized UI and component-based development) and IoT Cloud for device/sensor data integration.

Year 16 • 2015

Quip acquisition (productivity)

Salesforce acquires Quip for $750M to add collaborative documents and productivity into the platform.

Year 17 • 2016

Equal pay assessment and adjustments

Salesforce completes first company-wide equal pay assessment, resulting in approximately $3M in salary adjustments to address pay gaps.

Year 17 • 2016

Salesforce Tower (New York) opens

Salesforce expands its physical footprint with Salesforce Tower opening in New York.

Year 17 • 2016

Demandware acquisition and Commerce Cloud launch

Salesforce acquires e‑commerce provider Demandware for $2.8B and launches Commerce Cloud to extend Customer Success Platform into retail.

Year 17 • 2016

Einstein AI introduced

Salesforce announces Einstein—an AI platform embedding machine learning into Sales, Service and Marketing Cloud products.

Year 17 • 2016

Acquisition spree (2016)

In 2016 Salesforce acquires over 10 companies focused on commerce, AI, analytics and collaboration (eg. Demandware, Quip, Krux).

Year 17 • 2016

Net-zero greenhouse gas and carbon-neutral cloud

Salesforce announces achievement of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and delivery of a carbon-neutral cloud.

Year 18 • 2017

Revenue passes $10B (FY)

Salesforce reports $10.548 billion in revenue for fiscal year ending Jan 31, 2018 — a major scale milestone.

Year 18 • 2017

Partnerships: IBM & Google integrations

Salesforce forms/expands partnerships with IBM (Watson integration) and Google (G Suite and Analytics collaboration) to enhance AI and productivity integrations.

Year 18 • 2017

Salesforce Tower (San Francisco) grand opening

The Salesforce Tower in San Francisco has its grand opening—an icon and HQ presence symbolizing company scale.

Year 19 • 2018

Customer 360 introduced

Salesforce introduces Customer 360 (later part of Einstein 1) to unify customer data across Salesforce clouds.

Year 19 • 2018

MuleSoft acquisition announced/completed

Salesforce acquires MuleSoft for $6.5 billion to boost integration capabilities and data connectivity across clouds.

Year 19 • 2018

Years 20-24

Tableau acquisition completed

Salesforce completes acquisition of Tableau, the leading analytics and visualization company, for $15.7 billion.

Year 20 • 2019

Trailhead reaches millions of learners; Dreamforce scale

Trailhead surpasses 1.8 million learners; Dreamforce draws ~171,000 registered attendees and 16M online viewers.

Year 20 • 2019

Revenue milestone: >$17B (FY2020)

Salesforce reports annual revenue surpassing $17 billion for fiscal year ending Jan 31, 2020 (29% growth year-over-year at the time).

Year 20 • 2019

Vlocity acquisition (industry clouds)

Salesforce acquires Vlocity for $1.33 billion to accelerate industry cloud offerings and vertical functionality.

Year 21 • 2020

Announces acquisition of Slack (deal value $27.7B)

Salesforce signs definitive agreement to acquire Slack for $27.7 billion—its largest acquisition to date—announced December 2020.

Year 21 • 2020

Pandemic response products launched

Salesforce launches pandemic-related products: Salesforce Care, Work.com and Vaccine Cloud to assist organizations and public health response.

Year 21 • 2020

Market-cap milestone: surpasses Oracle

In July 2020 Salesforce briefly surpasses Oracle in market capitalization (~$179B vs Oracle ~$176B), a notable market-cap milestone.

Year 21 • 2020Valuation: $179,000,000,000

Added to Dow Jones Industrial Average

Salesforce is added to the Dow Jones Industrial Average effective Aug 31, 2020, replacing ExxonMobil.

Year 21 • 2020

Environmental milestone: Net Zero & 100% renewable ops

Salesforce announces Net Zero across its full value chain and that it has procured renewable energy equivalent to 100% of its global operations.

Year 22 • 2021

Revenue milestone: >$21B (FY2021)

Salesforce reports fiscal 2021 revenue of $21.25 billion and sets longer-term growth targets ($50B ambition cited internally).

Year 22 • 2021

Leadership changes: Keith Block, Amy Weaver, Bret Taylor

Keith Block departs as co-CEO (Feb 2020); Amy Weaver becomes CFO (Feb 2021); Bret Taylor named vice chair and co-CEO (Nov 2021).

Year 22 • 2021

Salesforce+ launched

Salesforce debuts Salesforce+, a streaming service with live and on-demand content for customers, partners and roles.

Year 22 • 2021

Slack acquisition closes

Salesforce completes the $27.7B acquisition of Slack, integrating a major collaboration tool into the Salesforce ecosystem.

Year 22 • 2021

NFT Cloud announced

Salesforce announces NFT Cloud—an environmentally conscious NFT commerce solution—garnering internal and external attention.

Year 23 • 2022

Awards & recognition (2022)

Salesforce receives multiple recognitions in 2022 including Most Sustainable Company and World's Best Workplace.

Year 23 • 2022

Market-cap (Sept 2022): ~US$153B

As of September 2022 Salesforce reported a market capitalization near $153 billion and was ranked the world's largest enterprise-applications firm.

Year 23 • 2022Valuation: $153,000,000,000

Customer Data Cloud (Genie) & Safety Cloud announced

At Dreamforce 2022 Salesforce announces Customer Data Cloud (hyperscale real-time data platform) powering Einstein 1, and Safety Cloud.

Year 23 • 2022

Legal name change to 'Salesforce, Inc.'

Company changes its legal entity name from 'Salesforce.com, Inc.' to 'Salesforce, Inc.' (April 2022).

Year 23 • 2022

Einstein GPT and Einstein 1 Platform launched

Salesforce unveils Einstein GPT (generative AI for CRM) and the Einstein 1 Platform to accelerate building generative AI apps and automation.

Year 24 • 2023

Salesforce Ventures investment scale & program growth

Salesforce Ventures launches and expands funds (e.g., $500M generative AI fund in 2023) and cumulatively invests billions across numerous startups.

Year 24 • 2023

Einstein scale: 1 trillion AI predictions/week

By 2023 Salesforce reports Einstein generating more than 1 trillion AI-powered predictions per week for customers.

Year 24 • 2023

Elliott Management takes a large stake

Activist investor Elliott Management announces it has acquired a 'big stake' in Salesforce, pressuring strategic review and governance.

Year 24 • 2023

Major workforce reduction announced (10%)

Salesforce announces a reduction of about 10% of its workforce—approximately 8,000 positions—citing over-hiring during the COVID pandemic.

Year 24 • 2023

Einstein Copilot introduced

Einstein Copilot—a conversational, business-grounded AI assistant for CRM and customer experiences—is announced.

Year 24 • 2023

Salesforce Ventures launches $500M generative AI fund

Salesforce Ventures establishes a $500 million fund to invest in generative AI startups, bolstering the AI ecosystem.

Year 24 • 2023

Years 25-29

Layoffs: ~700 employees (additional reductions)

Salesforce announces a smaller round of layoffs affecting roughly 700 employees (~1% of global staff) as part of cost controls.

Year 25 • 2024

25th anniversary and AI product expansion

Salesforce celebrates 25 years; launches Agentforce (agentic AI platform), Agentforce 2.0 and Zero Copy Partner Network; reports customers built 10,000 autonomous agents.

Year 25 • 2024

Zero Copy Partner Network announced

Salesforce announces the Zero Copy Partner Network to enable secure, bidirectional 'zero copy' integrations with Data Cloud.

Year 25 • 2024

Slack AI generally available to paid customers

Slack AI is made available to all paid Slack customers as part of deeper product integration with Salesforce.

Year 25 • 2024

Company scale metrics (2025 fiscal)

Fiscal 2025 results: Revenue US$37.89B, Net income US$6.197B, Total employees ~76,453 (as reported in 10-K for FY2025).

Year 26 • 2025