IBM and Confluent have signed a definitive agreement for IBM to acquire all of Confluent’s outstanding common shares for $31 per share, valuing the data-streaming company at $11 billion. The transaction, funded with cash on hand, is expected to close by mid-2026, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.
The deal gives IBM a managed data-streaming platform built on Apache Kafka that connects, processes and governs data and events in real time. IBM says Confluent’s technology will sit at the core of a “smart data platform” for enterprise IT, designed to move and clean data across public cloud, private cloud and on-premises systems so generative and agentic AI can use it.
The company expects the acquisition to be accretive to adjusted EBITDA in the first full year after closing and to add to free cash flow in year two.
Confluent, headquartered in Mountain View, California, serves more than 6,500 customers and says more than 40% of the Fortune 500 use its products. Its CEO and cofounder, Jay Kreps, will join IBM Software and report to Senior Vice President Rob Thomas, according to IBM.
The move extends IBM’s pattern of buying data and cloud software assets, following its acquisitions of Red Hat and HashiCorp, and signals that streaming data infrastructure is now seen as core AI plumbing rather than a specialist add-on.
The combined stack will compete with hyperscalers and independent Kafka providers as enterprises standardize on platforms that can feed multiple AI models from the same governed, real-time data streams.