According to a recent report, the Data Science Platforms market is estimated to grow at 16% CAGR to reach $378.7 billion by 2030 from $96.3 billion in 2021. Databricks, a leading data analytics solution provider, is seeing strong growth as well and is gearing up to go public soon.

Databricks’s Financials

San Francisco-based Databricks was set up with the objective of integrating data engineering, science, and analytics on an open, unified platform to help data teams collaborate and innovate faster. Based on Apache Spark, Databricks has been designed specifically for big data processing and helps data scientists take advantage of built-in core API for languages like SQL, Java, Python, R, and Scala. Earlier coverage is available here.

Its revenues grew to over $1 billion, driven by diversification into new products and AI. Its revenue grew more than 60% in 2022 and its data warehousing product is now generating more than $100 million annual recurring revenue (ARR). Its profitability figures are not disclosed.

Databricks’s AI Acquisitions

Databricks has recently announced its acquisition of San Francisco-based MosaicML, a leading generative AI platform, for $1.3 billion. The acquisition is part of Databricks’ AI expansion strategy. MosaicML is known for its MPT large language models (LLMs). With over 3.3 million downloads of MPT-7B and the recent release of MPT-30B, MosaicML has helped organizations quickly build and train their own LLMs using their data in a cost-effective way.

As part of the acquisition, Databricks will continue to offer MosaicML as a standalone service. It will enable businesses to build low cost language models with proprietary data using a combination of Databricks’ AI ready data management technology and MosaicML’s language model platform. 

Prior to the acquisition, MosaicML was privately held and had raised $64 million from investors that included DCVC, AME Cloud Ventures, Lux, Frontline, Atlas, Playground Global, and Samsung Next. Its last funding round had valued it at $222 million.

Earlier this summer, Databricks also announced the acquisition of Okera, a data governance platform with a focus on AI, for an undisclosed amount. Okera’s products help address data visibility and transparency issues, thus helping organizations understand their data, which is essential for the effective working of LLMs. Okera has also been developing a new isolation technology that supports arbitrary workloads while enforcing governance control without sacrificing performance.  Prior to the acquisition, Okera had raised just under $30 million. Investors include Felicis, Bessemer Venture Partners, Cyber Mentor Fund, ClearSky, and Emergent Ventures.

As Databricks prepares for its IPO, it did a pre-IPO funding round in September 2023 when it raised $500 million in a round led by Nvidia at a valuation of $43 billion. In an earlier round of funding held in October 2019, it had raised $1.6 billion in a round led by Counterpoint Global at a valuation of $38 billion. Databricks was expected to go public this summer, but the recent macro conditions appear to have delayed those plans. The latest funding is expected to help Databricks continue its expansion into the AI space. The company does not expect the fresh funding round to impact its IPO plans.

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