Databricks Raises $500M to Expand AI Tool Portfolio, Valuation Hits $43B
In Brief
Databricks has secured $500 million in Series I round at $43 billion valuation.
Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity Management & Research Company and NVIDIA joined the round.
Data lakehouse platform Databricks, today announced it has closed a $500 million Series I funding round. The funding values the company at $43 billion with a price per share of $73.50. T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. led the round, with participation from prominent existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity Management & Research Company, and Tiger Global.
New investors Capital One Ventures, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and NVIDIA also joined the round.
Databricks offers a lakehouse architecture that brings together data, analytics, and AI into a unified platform. This allows customers to oversee and extract insights from their corporate data, while also accelerating the development of their custom generative AI solutions.
“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,” Alan Tu, Lead Private Equity Analyst, T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc, said in a statement.
According to Databricks, its financial and strategic partners extended their support following its strong performance in Q2, which concluded on July 31, 2023. The company achieved a yearly revenue growth of more than 50%, reaching a revenue of $1.5 billion. The second quarter marked the highest quarterly increase in revenue in Databricks’ history.
Furthermore, Databricks claims that it closed the quarter with over 10,000 worldwide customers, including more than 300 customers generating annual revenue exceeding $1 million.
The company recently acquired MosaicML, a generative AI platform, for $1.3 billion. Additionally, the company said it unveiled 20 new product and feature releases during the fully-booked Data and AI Summit held in the same month.
The NVIDIA-Databricks partnership is readily apparent. Databricks is embracing its AI capabilities, which stem from its history of selling data and machine learning software. Meanwhile, NVIDIA is capitalizing on the surging demand for its chips and software powered by AI. The high demand for NVIDIA chips has prompted some countries to take steps to secure their own supply.
In April, Databricks announced the launch of Dolly 2.0 as the first commercially available open-source 12B Chat-LLM, allowing companies build robust language models without the need for costly GPU clusters.
“Enterprise data is a goldmine for generative AI,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Databricks is doing incredible work with NVIDIA technology to accelerate data processing and generative AI models.”
Databricks asserts that its Lakehouse platform is employed by more than 10,000 organizations worldwide to integrate their data, analytics and AI capabilities. These include Comcast, Condé Nast, and over 50% of the Fortune 500 companies.
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Cindy is a journalist at Metaverse Post, covering topics related to web3, NFT, metaverse and AI, with a focus on interviews with Web3 industry players. She has spoken to over 30 C-level execs and counting, bringing their valuable insights to readers. Originally from Singapore, Cindy is now based in Tbilisi, Georgia. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communications & Media Studies from the University of South Australia and has a decade of experience in journalism and writing. Get in touch with her via cindy@mpost.io with press pitches, announcements and interview opportunities.
More articlesCindy is a journalist at Metaverse Post, covering topics related to web3, NFT, metaverse and AI, with a focus on interviews with Web3 industry players. She has spoken to over 30 C-level execs and counting, bringing their valuable insights to readers. Originally from Singapore, Cindy is now based in Tbilisi, Georgia. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communications & Media Studies from the University of South Australia and has a decade of experience in journalism and writing. Get in touch with her via cindy@mpost.io with press pitches, announcements and interview opportunities.