Databricks IPO
Databricks is an enterprise software company founded in May 2013. The company made Delta Lake, MLflow, and Koalas, well-liked open source projects for data engineering, science, and machine learning.
The company's headquarters are in San Francisco, California. Other operation locations include: Canada, the UK, the Netherlands, Austraila, France, China, South Korea, Singapore, Germany, Serbia, Switzerland, Brazil and India.
Many may be eager to invest in Databricks, but the Databricks' IPO timeline is unknown. Experts predicted Databricks would IPO in 2021. CEO Ali Ghodsi said if the IPO window hadn't closed then, the company would already be public. Databricks tops the charts of likely private tech companies to IPO soon.
The data lakehouse platform pioneer unites and simplifies data for its clients. Databricks's noteworthy customers include Apple, Disney, H&M, HSBC, Shell, Conde Nast, and Atlassian. In addition to this group, Databricks boasts over 7000 other clients and an above-average retention rate of 150%.
Databricks is investing heavily in AI and ML, and acquired MosaicML for $1.3 billion. The company has also acquired Redash, 8080 Labs, Okera, and DataJoy. The company also acquired Arcion for $100 million in 2023.
According to current company filings, a Databricks initial public offering (SPAC or Direct Listing) must meet certain criteria to qualify. Databricks' minimum threshold of aggregate gross proceeds from a public offering is $50,000,000 to the Corporation. No minimum Databricks market cap has been defined for a public offering. These filings do not spell out the minimum Databricks stock price for an IPO.
An IPO can raise awareness of a company which can increase its market share. Selling shares to the public diversifies ownership and grants liquidity for shareholders. The media uses the CEO's context and comments to predict if and when the company may go public. The company's mission largely influences this decision.
When questioned about a potential exit, Ali Ghodsi has said Databricks is not in a hurry. In 2023, reports stated that Databricks was developing reporting and compliance software. This supports the idea of a future IPO because such software would be essential if the company decided to go public.
Databricks has public and private data analytics and data warehouse competitors. Other companies in the space include Domino Data Lab, Snowflake, AWS, Google, and Microsoft.
The IPO process is time consuming, complex, and expensive.
Once public, companies face additional expenses. Public companies' operations are subject to public and regulatory scrutiny. They deal with increased regulation once public and must reveal their financial information. Often in this process, management loses some control of the company.
The company has raised a total of $3.5 billion from its 8 funding rounds. Databricks investors include BlackRock, Tiger Global, GIC, Fidelity, Microsoft, Salesforce Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and others. Databricks' most recent funding round was a Series H in August of 2021. Its Series H totaled $1.6 billion led by Counterpoint Global with a Databricks valuation of $38 billion.
In 2022 many tech companies slashed their valuations. Databricks lowered the internal valuation (409a valuation) of its common stock little by comparison - down to $31 billion in 2022.
Recent estimates point to a potential 2023 Databricks IPO of at least $40 billion valuation. Rumors suggest that T. Rowe is in talks to lead Databricks' Series I at a $43 billion valuation.
Ali Ghodsi acknowledges there may be strategic reasons to IPO, but says the company doesn't need to IPO to raise funds. Reports from June 2023 claim Databricks hit $1 billion in revenue. If the company goes public, they may use the money to hire more employees, improve research and development, and increase marketing.
Investors have been hoping Databricks will join the group of private companies going public in 2023.
Armed with growing revenue and significant funding, Databricks seems to be in a good position to launch an IPO. Databricks would likely find institutional backers because of the increasing demand for data-driven insights and decision-making across industries. Experts expect the data warehouse market size to reach almost $59.5 billion by 2029.
1035 private companies IPOed in the peak of 2021 and only 181 company IPOs occurred in 2022. , The rate of the IPOs in 2023 has been significantly slower. Many people hope that the end of 2023 will be a breaking point in the near-frozen IPO markets.
Arm, Instacart and Klaviyo's IPO announcements confirmed a warmnig IPO market. Databricks may be next in line to announce an upcoming IPO. Experts are projecting a reasonable estimate for Databricks exit to be in 2024.
Databricks remains a privately held US company. The public can not yet buy Databricks stock on the NYSE or NASDAQ stock exchanges. There is not yet a Databricks stock symbol.
At this point there is scant concrete information to report on Databricks' IPO. Databricks has not announced any IPO date or target initial stock price. The company has not filed a registration statement Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Monitor this page for updates as changes to Databricks' IPO status become available.