Databricks raises $5B at $190B valuation after $15B investor surge
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- Databricks wanted to raise just $1 billion but faced $15 billion in investor demand after The Information reported on a fundraise mid-conference, ultimately closing $5 billion at a $190 billion valuation led by Coatue with Blackstone, MGX, T. Rowe Price, and new investor Sixth Street Growth.
- Ali Ghodsi disclosed Databricks has hit $7 billion in annualized revenue run rate, growing 80% year-over-year and cash-flow positive, with its core cloud data warehouse at $1.5 billion of that run rate growing 100% YoY.
- Lakebase, Databricks's agent-focused database launched in June 2025, has already reached a $100 million revenue run rate, and its AI chatbot Genie is described as 'insanely popular' for on-the-spot business analysis.
- Databricks has raised $20 billion over the past 20 months and holds multibillion-dollar cloud commitments with all three major hyperscalers, with Ghodsi calling AI research — staffed by a 100-person team — 'very expensive.'
- The company has been actively acquiring: Electric (maker of PGlite Postgres database) this week, AI cybersecurity firm Panther in June, and two startups in March, fueling online jokes that Databricks is running out of alphabet letters for its funding rounds.
- Ghodsi told CNBC he still intends to take Databricks public eventually, but for now prefers the private flexibility to keep investing in AI rather than face public-market scrutiny of those costs.
Why it matters: Databricks now sits at a $190 billion private valuation backed by roughly two dozen VCs who will eventually want liquidity — meaning an IPO is no longer optional, it's structurally inevitable. Meanwhile, the $7 billion run rate and cash-flow positivity suggest the company doesn't actually need the cash; it needs the runway to fund multibillion-dollar AI compute commitments and a 100-person research team.
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