As Salesforce Inc. (CRM) has grown beyond customer relationship management, or CRM, over the past quarter century, a vast ecosystem of consultants, managed services providers and other consultants has emerged to help users get the most out of the platform.
“Salesforce is everywhere. They have 20% plus CRM market share and that’s just scratching the surface of what that business does now,” said R.B. McCutcheon, managing director in the business services group of Houlihan Lokey Inc.
The platform includes the newly launched Agentforce, a suite of AI agents that solve problems for employees and customers; vertical software products for financial services, healthcare and other industries; and cloud offerings focused on data, marketing and other areas. Acquisitions such as Slack Technologies Inc. also added to the platform.
“There are more than 3,400 consulting partners, and the vast majority have less than 500 people,” McCutcheon said of the field of consulting partners. Among the group with less than 500 employees, he noted, a “very good portion” are founder-owned businesses.
“We expect continued interest from first time institutional capital making investments in platforms in the Salesforce ecosystem,” McCutcheon said.
Several founder-owned companies that specialize in Salesforce support, consulting and services have attracted sponsors:
- Access Global Group, which offers Salesforce and HubSpot Inc. (HUBS) consulting services, took its first outside capital from Rockbridge Growth Equity LLC in March.
- Lane Four Consulting sold a minority stake to VSS Capital Partners in October.
- Kicksaw Inc. tapped funding from Rallyday Partners, which specializes in backing founders, in March 2024.
Salesforce Builds and Buys a Platform
Founder Marc Benioff has grown Salesforce to a $40 billion top line and $260 billion market cap through organic and inorganic means, providing consultants, MSPs and other partners with a range of products to support.
Platform offerings include Agentforce, Einstein AI, AppExchange, Data Cloud, Service Cloud and Marketing Cloud.
Verticals include financial services, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing, automotive and government.
The company’s acquired offerings include collaboration platform Slack ($27.7 billion, July 2021); data visualization company Tableau LLC ($15.7 billion, August 2019); and systems, data and application integration software maker MuleSoft Inc. ($6.5 billion, May 2018).
Success Factors
Combining scale, profitability and specialization has been a successful strategy, McCutcheon said.
“If you can build something that is either domain-specific by cloud or vertical specific, you’ve got a very good path to an exit,” he said.
Partners with strengths in various Salesforce products have found backers:
- Cloud for Good LLC, which specializes in Salesforce Education Cloud and Nonprofit Cloud, received an investment from Tailwind Capital LLC in March.
- Pierce Washington LLC, with expertise ranging from Agentforce to Manufacturing Cloud, Revenue Cloud and Experience Cloud, recapitalized with Kidd & Co., Spring Capital and Southfield Mezzanine in January 2022.
- Astound Digital, which counts Agentforce, Mulesoft, Tableau and Marketing Cloud among its selling points, raised capital from RLH Equity Partners in May 2021.
- Zennify Inc., with strengths in Agentforce, Mulesoft, Tableau, Marketing Cloud, Experience Cloud and others, raised $7.5 million from Tercera LLC in December 2021.
An attractive profile includes revenue growth above 10%, gross margins near 40% and 20% Ebitda margins, McCutcheon said.
“For strategic acquirers, the range can really vary based on the type of organization,” he added.
For larger players, $30 million to $40 million in revenue is an inflection point, he said, though many privately held and PE portfolio companies find value below that level.
For PE platforms, he said, $10 million in Ebitda is an important benchmark.
“The universe of investors really expands once you scale past that level,” McCutcheon said.
Editor’s note: The original version of this article was published May 12, 2025, on The Deal’s premium subscription website. For access, log in to TheDeal.com or use the form below to request a demo.
