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Databricks hits $188B valuation, extending its run as AI’s favorite second act
Databricks announced a new funding round valuing the AI data analytics company at $188 billion, led by Coatue, with the raise estimated at roughly $3 billion and expected to close later this summer, marking another leap in its valuation as it successfully pivots from a SaaS-era data platform to an AI powerhouse. The company, which has raised multiple rounds over the past year and a half—including a $5 billion Series L five months ago at a $134 billion valuation, a $1 billion round at $100 billion in September 2025, and a record $10 billion at $62 billion in December 2024—now faces memes about running out of alphabet letters for its funding rounds. Founded in 2013, Databricks initially built its success on cloud-based data storage and analytics, then repositioned itself as an AI provider by launching products like Lakebase (a database for AI agents), Unity (an AI gateway), and Omnigent (a meta-harness managing multiple agents). It has increasingly championed affordable Chinese open-weight models for cost control, a key 2026 trend, especially Z.ai’s GLM 5.2 for coding tasks. Last week, CEO Ali Ghodsi shared internal benchmarking showing that open models like GLM 5.2 handle high-level coding at lower cost than proprietary models from Anthropic and OpenAI, and that the choice of agentic coding harness—such as open-source Pi—equally impacts cost and quality. These developments reinforce Databricks’ AI-halo, driving its valuation surge as investors chase AI-focused companies.