Databricks announced Thursday it has closed a $5 billion funding round that pushes the AI data platform’s valuation to $190 billion, making it one of the most valuable private companies in the world. CEO Ali Ghodsi told TechCrunch the company originally planned to raise just $1 billion but was overwhelmed by investor demand after news of the fundraise leaked during the company’s June conference.
The round was led by Coatue and included Blackstone, MGX, T. Rowe Price, and new investor Sixth Street Growth, among approximately two dozen venture capital firms. Ghodsi said investor interest totaled $15 billion, forcing the company to dramatically expand the deal to accommodate backers who might otherwise feel snubbed.
The funding underscores the extraordinary capital appetite surrounding artificial intelligence infrastructure. Databricks reported $7 billion in annualized run-rate revenue, growing at 80 percent year-over-year, and is cash-flow positive. Its core cloud data warehouse product alone accounts for $1.5 billion of that revenue and is growing at 100 percent annually.
Ghodsi attributed the need for additional capital to the high cost of AI development, noting that Databricks maintains multi-billion dollar cloud commitments with all three major hyperscalers and operates an AI research team of 100 people. The company also continues to pursue acquisitions, recently buying Electric, the maker of lightweight Postgres database PGlite, and AI cybersecurity firm Panther in June.
The raise marks Databricks’ latest in a series of massive private rounds, having collected over $20 billion in the past 20 months. While Ghodsi told CNBC he still plans to take the company public eventually, he signaled no urgency given the company’s strong fundamentals and the ability to raise capital on favorable terms. At current scale, Databricks is one of the largest AI infrastructure companies globally, competing with Snowflake and cloud-native database providers.
The deal also reflects a broader trend in AI funding where late-stage rounds have ballooned far beyond what was considered massive just a few years ago. With startups routinely raising billion-dollar rounds at seed stage, Databricks’ ability to command $15 billion in overnight demand demonstrates the premium investors place on proven AI infrastructure businesses with real revenue and growth.
Sources: TechCrunch, CNBC
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