Databricks
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Investors
Founders
About
Databricks was founded in 2013 by seven UC Berkeley researchers: Ali Ghodsi, Ion Stoica, Matei Zaharia, Patrick Wendell, Reynold Xin, Andy Konwinski, and Arsalan Tavakoli-Shiraji 1. The company was created to commercialize Apache Spark, an open-source distributed computing project developed at UC Berkeley 1. Ali Ghodsi, the CEO, is a Swedish-American computer scientist who joined UC Berkeley in 2009 as a visiting scholar, where he co-authored influential papers on Apache Spark and Apache Mesos 2. Databricks is headquartered in San Francisco, California 1. The company pioneered the “lakehouse” architecture combining data lakes and data warehouses, and has grown rapidly, surpassing $5.4 billion in revenue run-rate by 2025 3. Ron Conway invested in Databricks through A.Capital, an early-stage venture firm he founded in 2014, and SV Angel’s growth fund also includes Databricks in its portfolio through Ashvin Bachireddy’s involvement via Geodesic Capital 4 5.
Funding History
| Round | Date | Amount | Valuation | Lead Investor | Key Co-Investors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Series A | Sep 2013 | $13.9M | N/A | Andreessen Horowitz | N/A 6 |
| Series B | Jun 2014 | $33M | N/A | New Enterprise Associates (NEA) | N/A 7 |
| Series C | Dec 2016 | $60M | N/A | New Enterprise Associates (NEA) | Andreessen Horowitz 8 |
| Series D | Aug 2017 | $140M | N/A | Andreessen Horowitz | NEA, Battery Ventures 9 |
| Series E | Feb 2019 | $250M | $2.75B | Andreessen Horowitz | Coatue Management, Microsoft, NEA, Battery Ventures, Green Bay Ventures, Geodesic 10 |
| Series F | Oct 2019 | $400M | $6.2B | Andreessen Horowitz | Alkeon Capital, BlackRock, Coatue, Dragoneer, Geodesic, Green Bay Ventures, Microsoft, NEA, T. Rowe Price, Tiger Global 11 |
| Series G | Feb 2021 | $1B | $28B | Franklin Templeton | CPP Investments, Fidelity, Whale Rock, AWS, CapitalG, Salesforce Ventures, Microsoft, Andreessen Horowitz, BlackRock, Coatue, T. Rowe Price, Tiger Global 12 |
| Series H | Aug 2021 | $1.6B | $38B | Morgan Stanley (Counterpoint Global) | Baillie Gifford, ClearBridge, UC Investments, Andreessen Horowitz, BlackRock, CPP Investments, Coatue, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, GIC, T. Rowe Price 13 |
| Series I | Sep 2023 | $500M | $43B | N/A | N/A 14 |
| Series J | Dec 2024 | $10B | $62B | Thrive Capital | Andreessen Horowitz, DST Global, GIC, Insight Partners, WCM Investment Management, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, ICONIQ Growth, MGX, Sands Capital, Wellington Management 15 |
| Series K | Aug 2025 | $1B | $100B+ | N/A | N/A 16 |
| Series L | Dec 2025 | $4B+ | $134B | Insight Partners, Fidelity, J.P. Morgan Asset Management | Andreessen Horowitz, BlackRock, Blackstone, Coatue, GIC, MGX, NEA, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Robinhood Ventures, T. Rowe Price, Temasek, Thrive Capital 17 |
What Investors Say
“If you want to build competitive advantage using Artificial Intelligence and you are not Google or Facebook, Databricks is essential. We’ve looked at every solution on the market and nothing else comes close.” – Ben Horowitz, co-founder and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, Series D announcement, August 2017 9
Ben Horowitz has also spoken about co-founder Matei Zaharia, calling him one of the “best distributed systems people out of academia in the last 10 years,” and stating that between Zaharia’s talent and the team’s work on Apache Spark, he would have invested “should they have had no plan at all” 18.
What Founders Say
“Facebook said they could predict couples breaking up in advance using machine learning, and we thought, wow, that’s amazing technology. We wanted to democratize that and bring it to every company on the planet.” – Ali Ghodsi, CEO and co-founder 2
“The same first-principles thinking that created Spark… Don’t optimize the existing thing. Go back to fundamentals and build the right system.” – Ali Ghodsi, on Databricks’ product philosophy 2
Sources
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Databricks website, “Founders,” accessed March 2026. https://www.databricks.com/company/founders↩↩↩
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KITRUM, “How Ali Ghodsi, CEO of Databricks, Revolutionized Data and AI,” accessed March 2026. https://kitrum.com/blog/the-inspiring-story-ali-ghodsi-ceo-of-databricks/↩↩↩
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Databricks press release, “Databricks Grows >65% YoY, Surpasses $5.4 Billion Revenue Run-Rate,” accessed March 2026. https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/databricks-grows-65-yoy-surpasses-5-4-billion-revenue-run-rate↩
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Market Realist, “Angel Investor Ron Conway’s Net Worth After Decades of Investments,” accessed March 2026. https://marketrealist.com/p/ron-conway-net-worth/↩
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SV Angel website, “Team,” accessed March 2026. https://svangel.com/about/team↩
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Databricks press release (via search results), “Databricks raises $13.9M Series A,” September 2013. https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom↩
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Bigeye, “A brief history of Databricks,” accessed March 2026. https://www.bigeye.com/blog/a-brief-history-of-databricks↩
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Databricks press release, “Databricks Raises $60 Million in Series C Funding,” December 2016. https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/databricks-raises-60-million-series-c-funding-advance-data-science-engineering-scale↩
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Databricks press release, “Databricks Secures $140 Million to Accelerate Analytics and Artificial Intelligence,” August 2017. https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/databricks-secures-140-million-accelerate-analytics-artificial-intelligence-enterprise↩↩
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Databricks press release, “Databricks’ $250 Million Funding Supports Explosive Growth,” February 2019. https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/databricks-250-million-funding-supports-explosive-growth-and-global-demand-for-unified-analytics-brings-valuation-to-2-75-billion↩
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Databricks press release, “Databricks’ Growth Draws $400 Million Series F Investment,” October 2019. https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/databricks-growth-draws-400-million-series-f-investment-and-6-2-billion-valuation↩
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Databricks press release, “Databricks Raises $1 Billion Series G Investment at $28 Billion Valuation,” February 2021. https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/databricks-raises-1-billion-series-g-investment-at-28-billion-valuation↩
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Databricks press release, “Databricks Raises $1.6 Billion Series H Investment at $38 Billion Valuation,” August 2021. https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/databricks-raises-1-6-billion-series-h-investment-at-38-billion-valuation↩
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Databricks press release, “Databricks Raises Series I Investment at $43B Valuation,” September 2023. https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/databricks-raises-series-i-investment-43b-valuation↩
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Databricks press release, “Databricks is Raising $10B Series J Investment at $62B Valuation,” December 2024. https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/databricks-raising-10b-series-j-investment-62b-valuation↩
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Databricks press release, “Databricks is raising a Series K Investment at >$100 billion valuation,” August 2025. https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/databricks-raising-series-k-investment-100-billion-valuation↩
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TechCrunch, “Databricks raises $4B at $134B valuation as its AI business heats up,” December 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/16/databricks-raises-4b-at-134b-valuation-as-its-ai-business-heats-up/↩
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Fortune, “How Databricks became an A.I. sensation,” March 2023. https://fortune.com/2023/03/02/databricks-ben-horowitz-data-cloud-startup/↩