Databricks Eyes $100 Billion Valuation in New Funding Round as Investors Rush Into AI, but IPO Too Early to Call

Databricks, the data-analytics and AI software firm, is finalizing a new funding round that would value the company at more than $100 billion, a significant increase from its previous round in December. The move underscores surging investor demand for artificial intelligence startups and comes less than a year after the company raised $10 billion at a $62 billion valuation last December, one of the largest venture funding rounds in history.

The new round is expected to be co-led by Thrive Capital, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and potentially other large investors, according to people familiar with the matter. Although the final size of the round has not been determined, CEO Ali Ghodsi said investor interest has been overwhelming. “It wasn’t this way two months ago, but in the last month it’s just been constant,” he said, noting that the round is already oversubscribed.

Founded on the promise of turning massive data sets into usable insights, Databricks has gained momentum with the global AI boom. Its Data Intelligence Platform, built on a “lakehouse” architecture, allows organizations to unify all of their data and apply AI models at scale. More than 15,000 companies worldwide — including over 60% of the Fortune 500 — rely on its software. Adidas, for example, uses Databricks to analyze customer sentiment from millions of reviews to improve its products.

Databricks also faces direct competition from Snowflake, another major data-analytics firm. While both companies help enterprises manage and analyze massive data sets, their approaches differ: Snowflake is best known for its cloud-based data warehouse, while Databricks emphasizes its open “lakehouse” model designed for both data science and AI workloads. Snowflake currently holds a market capitalization of about $65.8 billion, up 27% so far this year.

This year, Databricks also struck new partnerships with Palantir and SAP, enabling shared customers to merge their data across platforms for richer analytics. The company plans to invest a portion of the new capital into product development, particularly databases designed for AI agents rather than human users. Funds will also be allocated for acquisitions and to compete in the global AI talent race.

The strong valuation allows Databricks to postpone any near-term IPO plans, despite Wall Street’s enthusiasm for AI-linked offerings. “The finance team tells me not to use this term, but I think Databricks has a shot to be a trillion-dollar company,” said Ghodsi. “But we have a lot of work ahead of us to get there.”