Data and AI Company Databricks to Raise $10 Billion in Funding Round
Databricks has announced a Series J funding round in which it is raising $10 billion of expected non-dilutive financing and has completed $8.6 billion so far.
The funding values the data and artificial intelligence (AI) company at $62 billion, Databricks said in a Tuesday (Dec. 17) press release.
The round is “substantially oversubscribed,” Databricks Co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi said in the release.
“These are still the early days of AI,” Ghodsi said. “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.”
The Databricks Data Intelligence Platform helps organizations use their data for analytics, machine learning and AI applications, according to the release.
Interest in AI has accelerated Databricks’ growth to over 60% year-over-year in recent quarters, the release said.
The company will use the new capital to fuel new AI products, acquisitions and international go-to-market operations, to provide liquidity for current and former employees, and to pay related taxes, per the release.
Databricks has emerged as “the platform of choice” for democratizing data and AI, Joshua Kushner, CEO of Thrive Capital, which is leading the funding round, said in the release.
“We have witnessed the team’s unrelenting execution, and consider it an honor to be partners with the company for the long term,” Kushner said.
It was reported Friday (Dec. 13) that Databricks was close to raising $9.5 billion in a funding round and that the feat would create one of the largest-ever venture capital funding rounds.
As a data analytics firm, Databricks can sell its clients tools related to AI applications and thereby benefit from the AI boom that has seen OpenAI’s $6.5 billion raise and xAI’s $6 billion raise, Reuters reported Friday.
HSBC Innovation Banking said Monday (Dec. 16) that 42% of U.S. venture capital was invested into AI companies in 2024, up from 36% in 2023 and 22% in 2022.
When Databricks raised over $500 million in a September 2023 funding round that valued it at $43 billion, the company said in a press release that by unifying data, analytics and AI on a single platform, the Databricks Lakehouse enables customers to gain insights and build generative AI solutions faster.
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