Databricks raised $5 billion at a $190 billion valuation, five times what it planned

Databricks closed a $5 billion funding round on Thursday at a $190 billion valuation. That is five times what the company intended to raise, and co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi told TechCrunch part of the reason was an accident: a report by The Information about a big fundraise landed in the middle of the company's June conference, and the investor interest that followed never went away.

A leak that worked in the company's favor

"We wanted to raise $1 billion, but then The Information printed this article saying that Databricks is doing a big fundraise," Ghodsi recalled. The company was heads down for its conference when the story broke, and the timing was, in his words, the worst possible one. "As soon as that article went out, there was a long line of investors that started calling. My phone blew up."

From the select group of investors Databricks looked at, Ghodsi said, there was $15 billion of interest. With that much demand, turning away long-time backers would have created hard feelings, so the company decided to issue more stock. In July it announced the round had closed at a $188 billion valuation, without disclosing the size. Thursday's announcement filled in the rest: $5 billion, led by Coatue, with participation from Blackstone, MGX, various accounts associated with T. Rowe Price, and new investor Sixth Street Growth, the firm founded by Alan Waxman, the former chief investment officer of Goldman Sachs. About two dozen VCs were named.

The numbers behind the round

Databricks says it has reached $7 billion in annualized run-rate revenue, growing at 80%, and that the company is cash-flow positive. Its core product, the cloud data warehouse, accounts for $1.5 billion of that run rate and is still growing at 100% year over year, according to the company. The AI line is smaller but visible. Lakebase, its database for agents that launched in June 2025, has hit a $100 million run rate, and Genie, the business-analysis chatbot, "is insanely popular," Ghodsi said.

Why raise when the business is fine

Databricks had already raised about $20 billion over the past 20 months. The main answer is cost. AI is expensive, Ghodsi said, and the company carries multibillion-dollar cloud commitments with all three major hyperscalers on top of an AI research team of 100 people, a highly competitive area to staff.

Acquisitions are the other drain. Databricks announced this week that it is acquiring Electric, the company behind PGlite, the lightweight Postgres database that lets agents spin up their own databases; terms were not disclosed. In June it bought AI cybersecurity firm Panther, and in March it picked up two more startups.

Still no IPO

A $1 billion round used to be a large, difficult raise. The comparison has changed: earlier this month, a two-month-old startup raised a $1.1 billion round. Databricks' repeated private raises have also become a running joke online, with people noting that the letters of the alphabet are running out.

Ghodsi told CNBC that he still wants to take Databricks public one day. For now, his stated priority is investing in AI, and the round gives the company room to do that without public-market scrutiny.