Databricks, the Data and AI company, announced its Series I funding, raising over $500m. This funding values the company at $43 billion and establishes the price per share at $73.50.
The series is led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates which is joined by existing investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Baillie Gifford, ClearBridge Investments, funds and accounts managed by Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley), Fidelity Management & Research Company, Franklin Templeton, GIC, Octahedron Capital and Tiger Global along with new investors Capital One Ventures, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and NVIDIA.
What does the funding mean for Databricks?
“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. Databricks and NVIDIA are building transformative AI tech, and we’re excited about the business value and innovation we can bring to our customers,” said Ali Ghodsi, Co-Founder and CEO, Databricks.
The Databricks Lakehouse unifies data, analytics and artificial intelligence on a single platform so that customers can govern, manage and derive insights from enterprise data and build their own generative AI solutions faster. The support from Databricks’ financial and strategic partners comes on the heels of its Q2 momentum (ended July 31, 2023), which includes:
- Crossed $1.5B revenue run rate at over 50% revenue year-over-year growth with the second quarter representing the strongest quarterly incremental revenue growth in Databricks’ history
- Ended the quarter with more than 10,000 global customers, including >300 customers consuming at $1M+ annual revenue run-rate
- Achieved record Non-GAAP subscription gross margins of 85%
- Closed acquisition of MosaicML, a leading generative AI platform
- Delivered 20 product and feature releases at the sold-out Data and AI Summit in June with over 30,000 global attendees
What are the investors’ thoughts on Databricks?
Commenting on the funding, Jensen Huang, founder and Chief Executive Officer of NVIDIA, commented, “Enterprise data is a goldmine for generative AI. Databricks is doing incredible work with NVIDIA technology to accelerate data processing and generative AI models.”
“Data and AI have rapidly become the centerpiece 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 are proud to extend our investment at such a pivotal time for the company, its customers, and the data and AI industry,” commented Alan Tu, Lead Private Equity Analyst, 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,” said Olivia Steedman, Executive MD, Teachers’ Venture Growth at Ontario Teachers’ Venture Growth.
