On Monday, Databricks was reported to raise $9.5 billion in funding at a $60 billion valuation, marking one of the largest venture capital funding rounds in history. This is said to include a secondary sale for employees at a price of $92.50 per share. Now, the San Francisco-based company specialising in data analytics and AI solutions has announced its Series J funding round.
Investment details
The company is raising $10 billion of non-dilutive financing and has completed $8.6 billion to date. This recent funding values Databricks at $62 billion. Led by Thrive Capital, the round was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz (recently invested in 11x and Valon), DST Global, GIC, Insight Partners, and WCM Investment Management. Other significant participants include existing investor Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and new investors ICONIQ Growth, MGX, Sands Capital, and Wellington Management.
Databricks will invest this capital towards new AI products, acquisitions, and significant expansion of its international go-to-market operations. In addition to fuelling its growth, this capital is expected to be used towards providing liquidity for current and former employees, as well as paying related taxes. Finally, this quarter marks the first time the company is expected to achieve positive free cash flow.
AI-driven Unified Analytics Platform
Databricks was founded in 2013 in the US by a team of seven researchers from UC Berkeley’s AMPLab – Ali Ghodsi, Matei Zaharia, Reynold Xin, Ion Stoica, Patrick Wendell, Andy Konwinski, and Arsalan Tavakoli-Shiraji. It was established with a mission to streamline data processing and AI applications, Databricks has attracted global attention for its ability to address challenges in modern data infrastructure. Its focus on innovation has established it as a key player in the rapidly expanding field of AI-driven analytics.
The Databricks Data Intelligence Platform democratises access to data and AI, making it easier for organisations to harness the power of their data for analytics, machine learning, and agentic AI applications. Built on open data formats and architectural standards, the platform enhances accuracy for better cost and risk control. Customers use the Data Intelligence Platform to find and treat diseases and cancer earlier, identify new ways to combat climate change, detect financial fraud, develop pharmaceuticals faster, reduce time to mental health intervention, decrease local financial inequality, and much more.
Milestones achieved
Today’s announcement comes on the heels of Databricks’ recent momentum which includes over 60% year-over-year growth in the third quarter of 2024, all set to surpass a $3 billion revenue run-rate by the end of January 2025, continuing to achieve non-GAAP subscription gross margins above 80%, having over 500 customers consuming at over $1 million annual revenue run-rate, and achieving $600 million revenue run rate for Databricks SQL, the company’s intelligent data warehousing product.
Global presence
This momentum builds upon a year of global business expansion. Databricks announced its new European regional hub in London, the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) regional hub in Singapore, and an expanded presence in Latin America and the Middle East.
“We were substantially oversubscribed with this round and are super excited to bring on some of the world’s most well-known investors who have a deep conviction in our vision. These are still the early days of AI. We are positioning the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform to deliver long-term value for our customers and our team is committed to helping companies across every industry build data intelligence,” said Ali Ghodsi, Co-Founder and CEO of Databricks. “We would not be where we are today without our employees, and we want to compensate them for all of their hard work.”
“Databricks, driven by its mission to democratise data and AI, has emerged as the platform of choice,” said Joshua Kushner, CEO of Thrive Capital. “We have witnessed the team’s unrelenting execution, and consider it an honour to be partners with the company for the long term.”
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