The big data platform Databricks raised $400m reportedly at $6.2bn valuation, with the backing of Microsoft. The company forms part of the broader big data tech space, in which corporates have been heavily investing over recent years.
US-based data analytics software producer Databricks completed a $400m series F round, which included software provider Microsoft, a returning corporate investor. The round reportedly valued it at $6.2bn and was led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. It also featured venture firms Alkeon Capital Management, Coatue Management, Dragoneer Investment Group, Geodesic Capital, Green Bay Ventures, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Tiger Global Management, among other. The new funding will permit the company to scale research and development activities and accelerate its international expansion. Databricks intends to invest €100m ($111m) into its Netherlands-based European Development Center in the next three years.
Founded in 2013, Databricks has developed a big data analytics platform based on Apache Spark software created by its founders which enables corporate clients to connect their data science and engineering teams so they can prepare data more thoroughly for analytics and processing on a large scale. The company boasts more than 2,000 corporate customers and claims its annual recurring revenue is now higher than $100m. It released a version of the product customised for Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform in late 2017 for which it had collaborated with the corporate.
Databricks is part of the larger and broader big data tech space, which has received much attention from corporate investors, as our GCV Analytics bar chart here illustrates. We saw a peak of corporate-backed rounds in that space in 2015 – with 215 rounds worth an estimated total capital of $8.4bn. The pace of both deal volume and dollar value, however, has moderated since. During the first nine months of this year, we have already reported 104 rounds, worth an estimated total of $3.91bn.
