Insider Brief
- IBM agreed to acquire Confluent for $31 per share in an all-cash deal valued at $11 billion, positioning the company to integrate real-time data streaming more deeply into its hybrid cloud and AI strategy.
- Confluent’s platform, built on Apache Kafka, will give IBM stronger capabilities for connecting, governing, and preparing data for generative and agentic AI across cloud and on-prem environments.
- IBM expects the acquisition to accelerate product synergies across its AI, automation, data, and consulting portfolios and to become accretive to adjusted EBITDA in the first full year after closing, with shareholder approval and regulatory clearance targeted for mid-2026.
PRESS RELEASE — IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Confluent, Inc. (NASDAQ: CFLT), the data streaming pioneer, today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which IBM will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Confluent for $31 per share, representing an enterprise value of $11 billion. Confluent provides a leading open-source enterprise data streaming platform that connects, processes and governs reusable and reliable data and events in real time, foundational for the deployment of AI.
IDC estimates that more than one billion new logical applications will emerge by 20281, reshaping technology architectures across industries. To fuel meaningful outcomes and drive productivity in operations, these applications, as well as AI agents, need access to connected and trusted data – in real time. IBM and Confluent will enable end-to-end integration of applications, analytics, data systems and AI agents to drive intelligence and resilience in hybrid cloud environments.
“IBM and Confluent together will enable enterprises to deploy generative and agentic AI better and faster by providing trusted communication and data flow between environments, applications and APIs. Data is spread across public and private clouds, datacenters and countless technology providers,” said Arvind Krishna, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer. “With the acquisition of Confluent, IBM will provide the smart data platform for enterprise IT, purpose-built for AI.”
“Since its founding, Confluent has helped organizations unlock the full potential of their data, driving innovation in an increasingly complex IT landscape. We are extremely proud of the work we’ve done in providing clients with a real-time data streaming platform for the next era of technology, including generative and agentic AI,” said Jay Kreps, CEO & Co-founder, Confluent. “We are excited by the potential to join IBM and to accelerate our strategy with IBM’s go-to-market expertise, global scale and extensive portfolio. I look forward to the future we will build together as Confluent becomes part of IBM.”
The real-time nature of Confluent’s platform is critical for organizations as they leverage data living across all IT environments. Confluent addresses the challenges of today’s technology and data landscape. Confluent excels at preparing data for AI, keeping it clean and connected across systems and applications, eliminating silos inherent in agentic AI. In the last four years alone, Confluent’s total addressable market (TAM) has doubled from $50 billion to $100 billion in 20252. Confluent’s real-time data and event streaming capabilities, combined with IBM’s AI infrastructure software and Automation offerings, will better position the companies to capture this opportunity.
Transaction Rationale
- Strategic Fit: Confluent is a natural fit for IBM, consistent with the company’s hybrid cloud and AI strategy. Data and applications are experiencing dramatic growth – by 2028, global data will more than double, and over one billion new applications will emerge. This exponential growth will be amplified by the continued adoption of AI, increasing demands on IT departments. Organizations around the world turn to IBM to simplify, automate and integrate disparate systems. The addition of Confluent will complement IBM’s existing capabilities in its Data and Automation portfolio. Additionally, the acquisition of Confluent represents further commitment to IBM’s 25-year history of open-source innovation and investment, building on the acquisitions of open-source leaders like Red Hat and HashiCorp.
- Strong Synergy Opportunities: The acquisition of Confluent is expected to drive substantial product synergies across IBM’s portfolio – including AI products and services, Automation, Data and Consulting – and accelerate revenue growth by leveraging IBM’s go-to-market reach. The acquisition is also expected to result in significant operational efficiencies through IBM’s scale and best-in-class productivity actions.
- Attractive Financial Profile: The acquisition of Confluent is expected to accelerate IBM’s growth over time. IBM also anticipates that the transaction will be accretive to adjusted EBITDA within the first full year and free cash flow in year two, post close.
Confluent is headquartered in Mountain View, CA and currently has more than 6,500 clients across major industries – more than 40% of the Fortune 500. The company partners and integrates across the technology industry with leaders like Anthropic, AWS, GCP, Microsoft, Snowflake and more. This is consistent with IBM’s approach to deep industry partnership and working across a broad and open technology ecosystem of application providers, ISVs and hyperscalers.
Confluent is built on Apache Kafka®, an open-source data and event streaming platform for data in motion. Apache Kafka enables fast, reliable and scalable data streaming capabilities for analytics, monitoring and event-driven architectures. Confluent’s platform includes Data Streaming, Connectors, Stream Governance, Stream Processing, Tableflow, Confluent Intelligence and Streaming Agents. The platform has flexible deployment options, including:
- Confluent Cloud: A fully managed deployment of Confluent’s data streaming platform. Its serverless Apache Kafka engine powers the most efficient way to deploy and scale real-time data streams in the cloud.
- Confluent Platform: The self-managed deployment of Confluent’s data streaming platform, powered by a cloud-native, enterprise-grade distribution of Apache Kafka.
- WarpStream: A hybrid Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC) deployment model with the ease of use of a fully cloud hosted solution, but the cost profile, security and data sovereignty of a self-hosted deployment.
- Confluent Private Cloud: Brings a cloud‑native, managed‑service experience to self‑managed, private environments, applying Confluent Cloud’s Kora innovations to on‑prem and private cloud Kafka workloads.
Transaction Details
Under the terms of the agreement, IBM will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Confluent for $31 per share in cash, representing an enterprise value of $11 billion. Confluent will be acquired with available cash on hand.
The board of directors of IBM and the board of directors and independent special committee of Confluent have each approved the transaction. The acquisition is subject to approval by Confluent shareholders, regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
Confluent’s largest shareholders and investors, who collectively hold approximately 62% of the voting power of Confluent’s outstanding common stock, entered into a voting agreement with IBM pursuant to which each has agreed to vote all of their common shares in favor of the transaction and against any alternative transactions.
The transaction is expected to close by the middle of 2026.
Investor Briefing:
An investor briefing is available on the Investor Relations website: https://www.ibm.com/investor/events/ibm-confluent
