Databricks raises $4B at $134B valuation as its AI business heats up

Databricks, a data intelligence firm, has secured over $4 billion in a Series L funding round, pushing its valuation to $134 billion. This represents a 34% increase from its $100 billion valuation just three months prior. The company's continued success in attracting venture capital suggests that some tech companies are finding ways to thrive without pursuing an IPO.

This latest funding marks Databricks' third major venture capital raise in under a year. The investment arrives as the company intensifies its focus on developing AI-centric products, including Lakebase (a database for AI agents), Agent Bricks (an AI agent platform), and applications designed to help businesses create and implement data and AI solutions.

Databricks is making significant investments in Lakebase, which is built upon the open-source Postgres database, enhanced by the $1 billion acquisition of Neon. Lakebase is designed to support developers' AI projects. Agent Bricks, the company’s AI agent platform, aims to enable businesses to build and deploy AI agents that can access their data. Databricks has also entered into substantial agreements, valued in the hundreds of millions, with AI labs like Anthropic and OpenAI, integrating their models into its enterprise offerings.

While Series L funding rounds are uncommon, Databricks' ability to consistently raise capital at increasing valuations – it was valued at $60 billion around this time last year – highlights investor confidence in the company's strategy of empowering businesses to leverage data for AI initiatives.

Databricks reported on Tuesday that its revenue run rate now exceeds $4.8 billion, a 55% increase year-over-year, with over $1 billion attributed to its AI products.

According to a company press release, Databricks plans to use the new capital to assist customers in building AI applications and agents on their proprietary data. The company envisions Lakebase as the system of record, Databricks Apps as the user experience layer, and Agent Bricks as the engine for multi-agent systems. This strategy aims to capitalize on what Databricks calls the “parallel rise of vibe coding and generative AI,” which is accelerating the development of data-intelligent applications within enterprises.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the funding will also support the creation of thousands of new jobs across Asia, Europe, and Latin America, as well as the expansion of its AI research team.

“Enterprises are rapidly reimagining how they build intelligent applications, and the convergence of generative AI with new coding paradigms is opening the door to entirely new workloads,” said Ali Ghodsi, Databricks’ co-founder and CEO, in a statement.

The Series L round was led by Insight Partners, Fidelity, and J.P. Morgan Asset Management, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz, BlackRock, Blackstone, Coatue, GIC, MGX, NEA, Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, Robinhood Ventures, T. Rowe Price Associates, Temasek, Thrive Capital, and Winslow Capital.