Databricks hits $188B valuation, extending its run as AI’s favorite second act

Databricks has secured a new funding round led by Coatue, bringing its valuation to $188 billion. This significant increase follows a series of rapid fundraising rounds as the company effectively repositioned itself as a leader in artificial intelligence. Originally founded as a big data platform, Databricks leveraged its massive data repositories to offer secure, governance-focused AI tools and enterprise agents. The company has gained further momentum by championing cost-effective, open-weight models like Z.ai’s GLM 5.2, demonstrating that open-source alternatives can outperform proprietary models from Anthropic and OpenAI for specific engineering tasks.

(Source：TechCrunch)