Databricks opens strategic funding round at $188bn valuation

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The round is led by existing investor Coatue and is expected to feature additional new and existing investors before closing later this summer. The San Francisco-based company offers a services platform around data and AI that aims to help build and scale apps, analytics, and agents for more than 20,000 client organisations such as Adidas, AT&T, Bayer, Block, Mastercard and Unilever. Databricks said the new funding would be used to “accelerate its AI strategy” through a focus on three of its core offerings: Unity AI Gateway, a “multi-AI governance solution that helps enterprises govern and control costs of their AI”; Genie, an “AI coworker that turns business data into trusted answers and actions”; and Lakebase, a “serverless ‘Postgres’ database built for AI agents”.

“Enterprises are moving from ‘tokenmaxxing’ to ‘valuemaxxing’,” said Ali Ghodsi, co-founder and CEO of Databricks. “They don’t want to burn expensive tokens on the smartest model for every task – they want the best outcome per dollar. That means having the freedom to choose the right AI for the job.

“This new capital lets us keep pushing our multi-AI strategy forward to meet massive customer demand”. The funding would also contribute to supporting future AI acquisitions and deepening AI research, the company said. In February, Databricks was valued at around $134bn after raising $5bn.

Last December, it raised around $4bn. In recent times, the company has launched or expanded partnerships with Microsoft, Google Cloud, Anthropic, SAP and Palantir. Its five-year deal with Anthropic, valued at $100m, offers Anthropic’s Claude AI models through Databricks’ data intelligence platform, allowing its more than 15,000 client companies to build and deploy AI agents that can reason on their own data.

Last August, Ghodsi told the Wall Street Journal that, in his view, “Databricks has a shot to be a trillion-dollar company”. Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Related: AI, data, analytics, funding and investment, US, software Tim Barnwell is a sub-editor and reporter at Silicon Republic editorial@siliconrepublic.com Last August, co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi told the Wall Street Journal that, in his view, ‘Databricks has a shot to be a trillion-dollar company’. US software and data analytics company Databricks is raising a strategic funding round at a $188bn valuation following the signing of a term sheet, it said yesterday (16 July).

The round is led by existing investor Coatue and is expected to feature additional new and existing investors before closing later this summer. The San Francisco-based company offers a services platform around data and AI that aims to help build and scale apps, analytics, and agents for more than 20,000 client organisations such as Adidas, AT&T, Bayer, Block, Mastercard and Unilever. Databricks said the new funding would be used to “accelerate its AI strategy” through a focus on three of its core offerings: Unity AI Gateway, a “multi-AI governance solution that helps enterprises govern and control costs of their AI”; Genie, an “AI coworker that turns business data into trusted answers and actions”; and Lakebase, a “serverless ‘Postgres’ database built for AI agents”.

“Enterprises are moving from ‘tokenmaxxing’ to ‘valuemaxxing’,” said Ali Ghodsi, co-founder and CEO of Databricks. “They don’t want to burn expensive tokens on the smartest model for every task – they want the best outcome per dollar. That means having the freedom to choose the right AI for the job.

“This new capital lets us keep pushing our multi-AI strategy forward to meet massive customer demand”. The funding would also contribute to supporting future AI acquisitions and deepening AI research, the company said. In February, Databricks was valued at around $134bn after raising $5bn.

Last December, it raised around $4bn. In recent times, the company has launched or expanded partnerships with Microsoft, Google Cloud, Anthropic, SAP and Palantir. Its five-year deal with Anthropic, valued at $100m, offers Anthropic’s Claude AI models through Databricks’ data intelligence platform, allowing its more than 15,000 client companies to build and deploy AI agents that can reason on their own data.

Last August, Ghodsi told the Wall Street Journal that, in