Salesforce Surges 14% on Strong Earnings, Will Anthropic IPO Help CRM Push to Record High?

TradingKey - On August 27 US Eastern Time, leading global SaaS company Salesforce (CRM) saw its stock price surge 13.6% in overnight trading, decisively breaking through the $230 mark to rise above $233, reaching its highest level since January this year. Salesforce's sharp rally was driven by positive earnings, with its investment in and partnership with Anthropic serving as the core highlight.

Why Is Salesforce Stock Rising?

According to the earnings data released after market close, Salesforce's key metrics, including revenue, earnings per share, and forward guidance, significantly beat market expectations, providing strong fundamental confidence to the market, as detailed below:

Salesforce's financial results significantly beat expectations, mainly driven by Anthropic. Among them, the surge in earnings was primarily due to recognizing huge paper unrealized gains from its early investment in Anthropic. Regarding this, Salesforce stated that it derived a "$2.6 billion strategic benefit from its investment in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic."

In addition, Salesforce's partnership with Anthropic has driven the commercialization of AI and data-related products such as Agentforce, Data Cloud, and Claudeforce. This includes raising average revenue per user and total contract value, increasing enterprise customers' willingness to sign large long-term contracts, and pushing annual recurring revenue past the $4 billion mark.

Can Anthropic's IPO Help CRM Push to Record Highs?

As shown above, Anthropic's impact on Salesforce mainly spans two aspects: 1. Financial aspect: It provides Salesforce's book equity investments with massive unrealized gains, directly boosting net asset value per share and net income, offering a solid asset cushion for the stock price; 2. Business aspect: It refutes the bearish thesis that SaaS will be replaced by AI, transforming AI into an actual driver of revenue growth.

However, relying solely on capital hype surrounding an IPO is insufficient to propel the stock to continuous new highs. Whether CRM can break above its record high still depends on the actual enterprise renewal rates of Agentforce and Claudeforce, as well as whether traditional SaaS subscription seats can maintain stable growth. Salesforce first invested $50 million in Anthropic during its Series C round in 2023 and subsequently participated in every follow-on funding round. The market expects it to hold a 1% stake, which, based on the Series H funding round, values its holding at roughly $5 billion—still relatively small for a company with a market cap in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Salesforce's stock price currently trades around $230, leaving an upside gap of nearly 60% from its all-time high of $369. Relying on the valuation premium of a single investment cannot bridge such a large market cap gap, as the market will not assign a SaaS valuation multiple of 30x or higher to one-off investment gains. If its core business lacks growth, stock price momentum will rapidly fade once investment gains are realized.

From a technical analysis perspective, Salesforce's stock price faces a dual technical obstacle. The $230 level served as support during multiple pullbacks in 2025 and also represents the 0.382 Fibonacci retracement resistance level during the decline, where a large volume of trapped positions is concentrated. If it can stabilize above this key level, it is expected to rally further toward $260-$270.

Salesforce stock price chart, Source: TradingView