Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, and application development.
Founded by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff, Salesforce quickly grew into one of the largest companies in the world, making its IPO in 2004. Salesforce's continued growth makes it the first cloud computing company to reach US1billioninannualrevenuebyfiscalyear2009,andtheworld′slargestenterprisesoftwarefirmby2022.Today,Salesforceisoneofthelargesttechnologycompaniesintheworld,andasofSeptember19,2022,isthe61stlargestcompanyintheworldbymarketcapwithavalueofnearlyUS153 billion. Salesforce ranked 136th on the most recent edition of the Fortune 500, making US26.5billionin2022.Since2020,SalesforcehasalsobeenacomponentoftheDowJonesIndustrialAverage.Salesforcewasfoundedin1999byformerOracleexecutiveMarcBenioff,togetherwithParkerHarris,DaveMoellenhoff,andFrankDominguezasasoftwareasaservice(SaaS)company.TwoofSalesforce′searliestinvestorswereLarryEllison,theco−founderandfirstCEOofOracle,andHalseyMinor,thefounderofCNET.Salesforcewasseverelyaffectedbythedot−combubbleburstingatthebeginningofthenewmillennium,withthecompanylayingoff205.4 million in the fiscal year 2001 to over $100 million by December 2003.
Also in 2003, Salesforce held its first annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco.