Author: Ginny Hendricksen
Updated on: May 14, 2024
Databricks is a data software giant known for creating Delta Lake, MLflow, and Koalas. Their open source projects have been designed to support data storage, data engineering, science and machine learning. The company makes data-driven insights and decision-making assistance available for data scientists in varied industries.
The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California with many other locations around the world including: Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Australia, France, China, South Korea, Singapore, Germany, Serbia, Switzerland, Brazil and India.
Databricks’ last funding round valued the private tech company at a hefty $43 billion (post-money).
The Databricks data lakehouse platform helps customers collect and simplify data. Databricks counts Apple, Disney, H&M, HSBC, Shell, Conde Nast, and Atlassian among its customers. The company has also attracted over 10,000 other clients enjoying an impressive retention rate of 150%.
Databricks is investing seriously in AI and ML, and acquired MosaicML for $1.3 billion. The company also acquired Redash, 8080 Labs, Okera, and DataJoy.
Databricks stock is not listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ stock exchanges. Since it is not publicly listed, there is no Databricks stock symbol assigned to its stock yet, and investors cannot buy Databricks via traditional brokerage accounts.
The company has raised a total of $4.1 billion from its 9 funding rounds from investors such as: BlackRock, Tiger Global, GIC, Fidelity, Microsoft, Salesforce Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and others.
Retail investors can invest in Databricks indirectly by buying shares of NVIDIA Corp (NVDA) or T Rowe Price Group Inc (TROW), because they hold Databricks stock.
Databricks will appear in the Notice stock ticker if it has recent private market activity.
As mentioned, Databricks is a privately-held US company so the general public cannot buy Databricks stock right now. However, the company has public and private data analytics and data warehouse competitors. Some retail investors interested in owning stock in this area may choose to invest in its competitors, such as: Snowflake (SNOW), AWS, and Google.
Currently, Databricks is #9 on Notice’s Index, the N50.
As for Databricks’ stock trading in the secondary market, it has been quite popular. It ranks #4 on Notice’s most active companies list.
Accredited investors are permitted to buy Databricks stock pre-IPO.
Private market transactions can be complex and often involve company approvals, legal purchase agreements and wires to third parties. Trades can take 30 - 60 days to complete and that's why many investors hire experienced private market brokers to ensure things go smoothly.
Notice members can message expert brokers for free to learn more about buying and selling private stocks.
Publicly traded companies’ operations are subject to public and regulatory scrutiny, but private companies are not required to release financial information to the public.
That said, CEO Ali Ghodsi confirms the company in super financial standing. Despite large capital infusions and strong revenue, the company is not profitable yet though. The company is focused on investing in growth, development, and potential acquisitions.
T. Rowe Price led Databricks' Series I at a $43 billion valuation in September 2023, up from its $38 billion post-money Series H valuation in August 2021.
In 2022 many tech companies drastically lowered their valuations. Databricks was not immune to this trend, but only lowered the internal valuation of its common stock (409a) to $31 billion - a mere 7%. Its common shares stock price declined accordingly from $55.77 to $55.69.
Regardless of the valuation adjustment which affected many private companies in 2022, the AI industry continues to boom in scale, interest, and value. Additionally, experts foresee the data warehouse market size reaching almost $59.5 billion by 2029.
You can track Databricks private stock price live on the stock price chart above.
Many investors have been looking forward to a Databricks IPO for years - since before 2021. CEO Ali Ghodsi said that if the IPO window hadn't closed in that year the company would already be public, but now the company is not in a hurry to IPO.
In 2023 reports stated that the company was developing reporting and compliance software essential for any company going public. This news fanned the flames of speculation around a Databricks IPO yet again, but the company has not filed a Form S-1 with the SEC.
Although there may be strategic reasons to launch an IPO, Ghodshi says the company doesn't need to IPO for fundraising. Reports show that the company has made $1.6 billion in revenue in 2023.
There is little known about when Databricks may go public, but company filings outline landmarks that must be met in order to qualify for an initial public offering (SPAC or Direct Listing).
For example, Databricks must pull in at least $50,000,000 in total gross proceeds from its IPO. No minimum Databricks market cap has been defined for a public offering. These filings do not spell out Databricks’ IPO timeline or target initial stock price.
Despite the unknowns regarding Databricks’ plans for an IPO, for many experts, this company tops the charts of most likely software companies to IPO soon.