Databricks Hopes to Build on AI Offerings With $15 Billion Fundraise
Data and artificial intelligence firm Databricks is now a $62 billion company.
The company reached that valuation after closing a Series J funding round, taking in $10 billion in equity financing along with a $5.25 billion credit facility from several of the world’s biggest banks, according to a Wednesday (Jan. 22) press release.
The company will invest its capital in new AI products, acquisitions and the expansion of its international go-to-market operations, the release said. The funding will also help provide liquidity for current and former employees and paying related taxes.
The round included participation by QIA, the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar, along with new investors Temasek and entities administered by Macquarie Capital, per the release. Meta joined as a strategic investor in Databricks.
“These partners are focused on the long-term success of Databricks and our rapidly growing customer base,” Databricks co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi said in the release. “Organizations are modernizing their data and AI infrastructure because they recognize the immense potential of generative AI. Data intelligence is critical to both unlocking this potential and to helping enterprises reach their business goals.”
Databricks first announced what it called a “substantially oversubscribed” Series J round last month, saying it aimed to raise $10 billion.
“These are still the early days of AI,” Ghodsi said in a Dec. 17 press release. “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 company said interest in AI has accelerated Databricks’ growth to over 60% year over year in recent quarters.
In other AI-related news, Alex Hoffmann, general manager of North America at Edenred Pay, told PYMNTS in an interview posted Wednesday about the impact generative AI is having on the back office.
“For a long time, the industry has offered up paperless alternatives to payments,” including virtual cards, and real-time payments are poised to gain even more traction, Hoffmann said “What GenAI adds on top of all this is that beyond the payment, we can automate the invoice-to-pay cycle.”
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