IBM announced on December 8, 2025, that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Confluent, Inc., a company known for its open-source enterprise data streaming platform. The deal values Confluent at $11 billion, with IBM offering $31 per share in cash.
The acquisition aims to enhance IBM’s capabilities in hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) by integrating Confluent’s real-time data streaming solutions. This integration is expected to provide organizations with better access to connected and reliable data across various environments, which is increasingly important as more applications and AI agents are developed.
Arvind Krishna, IBM chairman, president and chief executive officer, stated: “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. With the acquisition of Confluent, IBM will provide the smart data platform for enterprise IT, purpose-built for AI.”
Jay Kreps, CEO & Co-founder of Confluent, said: “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. 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.”
Confluent’s platform is based on Apache Kafka and offers several deployment options such as fully managed cloud services (Confluent Cloud), self-managed deployments (Confluent Platform), hybrid models (WarpStream), and private cloud solutions (Confluent Private Cloud). These options aim to meet varying customer needs regarding scalability, security, and deployment preferences.
The boards of both companies have approved the transaction. In addition, major shareholders holding about 62% of Confluent’s voting power have agreed to support the deal. The completion of the acquisition remains subject to shareholder approval at Confluent as well as regulatory clearances. The transaction is expected to close by mid-2026.
According to market research firm IDC, more than one billion new logical applications are expected by 2028—a trend that will require advanced data integration technologies like those offered by Confluent (https://www.ibm.com/investor/events/ibm-confluent). Over recent years, Confluent’s total addressable market has grown significantly due to increasing demand for real-time data processing capabilities.
Confluent currently serves over 6,500 clients across multiple industries worldwide—including more than 40% of Fortune 500 companies—and partners with other technology leaders such as Anthropic, AWS, GCP, Microsoft, Snowflake among others.
IBM expects this acquisition will drive product synergies across its existing portfolio—especially in AI products/services—as well as automation consulting. Financially, IBM anticipates accelerated growth from this transaction; it expects accretion to adjusted EBITDA within the first year after closing.
Both companies emphasized their commitment to open-source innovation through this deal.
Forward-looking statements provided by both parties note that completion of the deal depends on various factors including regulatory approvals and shareholder votes.
