AAA Databricks lays out $1.6bn in series H

Databricks lays out $1.6bn in series H

Databricks, a US-based data analytics software developer which counts a raft of corporates as investors, has raised $1.6bn in a series H round led by investment bank Morgan Stanley’s Counterpoint Global unit.

The round valued the business a $38bn post-money and also included Baillie Gifford, ClearBridge Investments, Andreessen Horowitz, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Coatue Management, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, GIC, Greenoaks, Octahedron Capital, Tiger Global and Whale Rock Capital Management.

UC Investments, which manages University of California’s retirement, endowment and cash assets, took part in the round as did funds and accounts managed by BlackRock and funds and accounts managed by T Rowe Price Associates.

Alta Park Capital, Discovery Capital, Dragoneer, Flucas Ventures, Gaingels, Geodesic Capital, Green Bay Ventures, the House Fund, New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and a suite of BNY Mellon funds filled out the list of round participants.

Founded in 2013, Databricks runs a cloud-based data management platform for aggregating and processing unstructured and structured data. It will use the proceeds of the series H round to invest in technology innovation and enter new markets.

Databricks has raised about $3.5bn of funding to date. CapitalG and Salesforce Ventures, investment units for internet and technology conglomerate Alphabet and enterprise software producer Salesforce respectively, joined e-commerce group Amazon’s Web Services subsidiary and software provider Microsoft in a $1bn series G round for Databricks in February 2021.

Franklin Templeton led the round investing alongside Fidelity, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Whale Rock, Andreessen Horowitz, Alkeon Capital Management Coatue, Tiger Global, GIC, Discovery Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, Founders Circle Capital, Geodesic, Green Bay Ventures, Greenoaks Capital, NEA and Octahedron Capital.

Funds and accounts advised by T Rowe Price and BlackRock also contributed to the series G round.

The company raised $400m in its series F round in October 2019, which was led by Andreessen Horowitz and included Microsoft, Alkeon Capital, Coatue, Dragoneer, Geodesic, Green Bay Ventures, NEA, Tiger Global and funds and accounts managed by BlackRock and T Rowe Price.

Microsoft also contributed to a $250m series E round in February of that year led by Andreessen Horowitz and featuring NEA and Coatue. Databricks’ early investors include Battery Ventures.