San Francisco-based Databricks, a Data and AI company, announced on Thursday that it has raised over $500M (approximately €469M) in a Series I round of funding at a $43B (approximately €40B) valuation.
The company has also established the price per share at $73.50.
The funding round was led by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., along with other existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Baillie Gifford, ClearBridge Investments, Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), Fidelity Management & Research Company, Franklin Templeton, GIC, Octahedron Capital, and Tiger Global.
Additionally, new investors Capital One Ventures, Ghisallo Capital Management, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, and NVIDIA also participated in the funding round.
“The commitment from long-term focused strategic and financial partners reflects Databricks’ continued momentum, the rapid customer adoption of the Databricks Lakehouse, and the success customers are seeing from moving to a unified data and AI platform,” says Ali Ghodsi, Co-Founder and CEO of Databricks.
“Databricks and NVIDIA are building transformative AI technology, and we’re excited about the business value and innovation we can bring to our customers,” adds Ghodsi.
The funding announcement comes as the US company is riding a wave of success, as its Q2 results for the period ending July 31, 2023, have showcased remarkable achievements.
With a revenue run rate surpassing $1.5B, the company has achieved over 50 per cent YoY growth, marking it as the most prosperous in Databricks’ history in terms of incremental revenue growth.
Currently, the company boasts a customer base exceeding 10,000 global clients, including more than 300 customers generating an annual revenue run rate exceeding $1M.
The company has also set a new record with a Non-GAAP subscription gross margin of 85 per cent.
Additionally, the company also acquired MosaicML, a renowned generative AI platform, to bolster its portfolio.
Databricks: Unifying data, analytics, and AI
Founded by the original creators of Delta Lake, Apache Spark, and MLflow, Databricks is on a mission to help data teams solve the world’s toughest problems.
The Databricks Lakehouse unifies data, analytics, and AI on a single platform so that customers can govern, manage, and derive insights from enterprise data and build their generative AI solutions faster.
As per the company’s claims, more than 10,000 organisations worldwide — including Comcast, Condé Nast, and over 50 per cent of the Fortune 500 — rely on the Databricks Lakehouse Platform to unify their data, analytics, and AI.
What the investors say
“Data and AI have rapidly become the centrepiece of many business strategies. Databricks has not only pioneered the Lakehouse category with a world-class team and product, but it is now also at the forefront of Generative AI for the enterprise. We’re proud to extend our investment at such a pivotal time for the company, its customers, and the data and AI industry,” says Alan Tu, Lead Private Equity Analyst at T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc.
“Teachers’ Venture Growth is excited to invest in Databricks and sees tremendous growth potential for the business as enterprises increasingly deploy AI across their operations. As investors focused on long-term value creation, we look forward to working with Ali and Databricks’ strong management team on the next phase of their growth journey,” says Olivia Steedman, Executive Managing Director of Teachers’ Venture Growth at Ontario Teachers.
