Databricks confirmed that it has reached a $100 billion valuation following a $1 billion Series K funding round. The announcement was paired with the disclosure that the company’s annualized recurring revenue (ARR) has climbed to $4 billion.
The company was founded in 2013 by seven computer scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, Ali Ghodsi, Ion Stoica, Matei Zaharia, Reynold Xin, Patrick Wendell, Andy Konwinski, and Arsalan Tavakoli-Shiraji. Their initial work built on the Apache Spark open-source project and has since expanded into a full enterprise platform that combines data storage, analytics, and AI tools.
Ali Ghodsi, the CEO, said “Our mission has always been to enable every organization to be data-driven, and this investment allows us to continue building the products and teams required to do that at scale.”
Revenue Scale and Product Growth
Databricks’ $4 billion ARR marks a sharp increase from 2024 levels. The company reported that more than $1 billion of this total came from AI-related offerings. Management noted that net revenue retention exceeds 140 percent, while more than 650 customers now spend at least $1 million annually. These figures emphasize the company’s depth among large enterprises and its ability to expand existing accounts.
To strengthen its platform, Databricks recently introduced new services including Agent Bricks, a framework for implementing enterprise-grade AI agents, and Lakebase, a transactional database tuned for real-time workloads. Both products expand the company’s reach beyond analytics into operational systems that support application development and automation.
Acquisitions have played a supporting role in this trajectory. In the past two years, Databricks acquired MosaicML to bolster model-training capabilities and Tecton to add feature-store infrastructure. These purchases have been integrated into the company’s platform to simplify how enterprises manage data pipelines and build machine learning applications.
Workforce Expansion and Graduate Hiring
Databricks said it will bring on three times as many recent graduates in 2025 compared with the prior year.
CEO Ali Ghodsi explained the thinking in an interview: “We definitely have people, quite junior people, [who] have a big impact, and they’re getting paid a lot. Under 25, you can be making a million.” The company describes these recruits as “AI-native,” emphasizing their early exposure to tools such as large-language models, modern data science frameworks, and cloud platforms.
The hiring surge is not limited to North America. Earlier this year, Databricks committed $250 million to expand its Indian operations, including a new R&D center in Bengaluru. Plans call for the workforce there to surpass 750 employees by year-end, supported by a Data + AI Academy designed to train half a million partners and customers over the next three years.
Competitive Pressures in Enterprise Data
Databricks operates in one of the most competitive segments of enterprise software. Its closest large-scale rival is Snowflake, which continues to expand its cloud-native data warehouse business. At the same time, smaller firms are developing specialized products such as vector databases, serverless operational databases, and frameworks for AI agents.
The launch of Lakebase signals Databricks’ intention to challenge providers in the operational database market, including Supabase and Neon. This broadening of scope shows how the company is extending beyond analytics into the infrastructure needed for real-time applications. As enterprises adopt AI-driven services, they are seeking unified platforms that can handle storage, analytics, models, and operational workloads together.
Ali Ghodsi noted in a statement: “It’s not only about analytics anymore. Customers want a single platform that can handle data, models, and applications in one place.”
Databricks’ customer base now spans over 15,000 organizations, from financial services and retail to healthcare and government. Several contracts exceed $100 million annually, giving the company a strong anchor in large enterprises. The firm also reported positive free cash flow in the most recent fiscal year, which sets it apart from many other venture-backed technology companies of its size.
