Databricks Raises $1B to Dominate the AI Database Market

Databricks, a data analytics company, has closed a new round raising $1 billion, pushing its valuation to $100 billion. The round was co-led by Insight Partners and Thrive. The CEO, Ali Ghodsi, revealed plans to invest in a new AI database market. The focus will be on developing a database for AI agents called Lakebase and an AI agent platform called Agent Bricks. Lakebase is based on the open-source database Postgres and aims to provide separated compute and storage for affordable database creation. Ghodsi believes that the use of AI agents in creating databases is rapidly increasing, with a prediction that 99% of new databases will be AI-generated within a year. Databricks aims to disrupt the traditional database market, currently dominated by Oracle, by catering to the needs of AI agents. With this new funding, the company also plans to navigate the competitive AI talent market and expand its product offerings.