Source: Sharecast
Following media speculation over the weekend, IBM confirmed on Monday that it had agreed to acquire the Nasdaq-listed firm for $31 per share.
A premium of around 34% to Confluent’s close on Friday, the offer price gives Confluent an enterprise value of around $11bn.
The cash deal is part of a wider strategy by IBM to cash in on the artificial intelligence boom by boosting its cloud and software offering. Confluent provides tech needed to manage the vast data streams used in AI models.
Arvind Krishna, IBM chief executive, said: "IBM and Confluent together will enable enterprise to deploy generative and agentic AI better and faster by providing trusted communication and data flow between environment, applications and APIs.
"With [this] acquisition, IBM will provide the smart data platform for enterprise IT, purpose-built for AI."
Confluent co-founder and chief executive Jay Kreps said: "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."
As at 1330 GMT, shares in Confluent had soared 30% in pre-market trading. IBM was tracking around 1% lower.
The transaction, which has already secured the backing of shareholders and investors collectively holding around 62% of the voting power of Confluent’s outstanding common stock, is expected to close in mid 2026.
