AI startup Databricks valued at $28 bn, tech giants join funding

Artificial intelligence startup Databricks said Monday it raised fresh capital at a $28 billion valuation, with investments coming from Microsoft, Google and Amazon.

The startup, which develops technology that delivers improved analytics to cloud computing platforms, has some 5,000 customers, including 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies, which use the service for data engineering.

The latest funding round of $1 billion was led by the investment firm Franklin Templeton and includes Amazon Web Services, the Google investment arm Capital G and Microsoft, a previous investor.

Also joining were new investors Salesforce, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Fidelity Management & Research LLC and Whale Rock, along with existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Alkeon Capital Management and other financial firms.

"We see this investment and our continued rapid growth as further validation of our vision for a simple, open and unified data platform that can support all data-driven use cases, from BI (business intelligence) to AI," said Ali Ghodsi, Databricks chief executive and co-founder.

"Databricks helps organizations eliminate the cost and complexity that is inherent in legacy data architectures so that data teams can collaborate and innovate faster."

The funding will enable Databricks to expand its "lakehouse" architecture, which draws data from various sources to help improve analytics.

The move comes amid heightened investor interest in cloud computing firms and follows a public offering from Snowflake, a cloud storage computing firm that has surged in value to some $80 billion.

rl/to

SALESFORCE.COM

MICROSOFT

GOOGLE

AMAZON.COM

Related Links
All about the robots on Earth and beyond!

Tweet

Thanks for being there;
We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.

SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5+ Billed Monthly

paypal only

SpaceDaily Contributor
$5 Billed Once

credit card or paypal

Motiv Space Systems and JPL to develop robotic arm for extreme cold environments
Pasadena CA (SPX) Jan 27, 2021
Motiv Space Systems, in partnership with JPL, has announced the development of COLDArm, the first-in-kind robotic arm that will be built to survive the extreme cold of the Moon's South Pole ushering in a new era of extended space exploration on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. COLDArm (short for Cold Operable Lunar Deployable Arm) is a vital component of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) a NASA program to send small robotic landers and rovers to the Moon, including its South Pole-a region kn ... read more