Advancing technology originating at UC Berkeley, Databricks has increased its valuation more than fourfold to $28bn and will use the funding to further scale its business.

Databricks, a US-based data analytics software producer based on research at University of California (UC), Berkeley, raised $1bn in series G financing yesterday led by investment firm Franklin Templeton.
Amazon Web Services, CapitalG and Salesforce Ventures, respective units of internet and e-commerce group Amazon, technology conglomerate Alphabet and cloud computing firm Salesforce, took part in the round, as did software developer Microsoft.
Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Fidelity Management and Research, Whale Rock, Andreessen Horowitz, Alkeon Capital Management, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Coatue Management, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates and Tiger Global Management also participated.
Remaining investors in the round included Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC as well as Discovery Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, Founders Circle Capital, Geodesic, Green Bay Ventures, Greenoaks Capital, New Enterprise Associates and Octahedron Capital.
The round valued Databricks at $28bn, up from $6.2bn previously.
Founded in 2013, Databricks has created a data management platform that can handle all structured, semi-structured and unstructured data for enterprise-scale analytics.
The technology is based on open-source analytics platform Apache Spark, developed at UC Berkeley by some of Databricks’ co-founders including chief executive Ali Ghodsi, who continues to be an adjunct professor at the university.
The series G capital has been allocated to scaling Databricks and accelerating the adoption of its product offering.
Databricks has now secured close to $1.9bn in total funding, including $400m in a series F round in October 2019 and $250m in a series E eight months earlier that were both led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Its investors also include Battery Ventures, seemingly the only backer that did not return for the series G round.

Thierry Heles

Thierry Heles is the former editor-at-large of Global University Venturing and Global Corporate Venturing, and was the producer and host of the Beyond the Breakthrough podcast until December 2024.