According to The Wall Street Journal, Databricks, a data analytics firm founded in 2013, is finalizing a $1 billion funding round, valuing the company at $100 billion. The funds will support the development of its database for AI agents, Lakebase, its AI agent platform, Agent Bricks, and the acquisition of AI talent.
Sources familiar with the deal confirmed to TechCrunch that the new round was significantly oversubscribed. Databricks decided against raising more capital despite the high demand, as the company does not require additional funds for operations. This follows a previous $10 billion funding round in January, which valued Databricks at $62 billion. OpenAI later surpassed this with a $40 billion raise in March.
The latest funding round was co-led by Thrive and Insight Partners, both of whom also led the previous round. With this new influx of capital, Databricks has raised approximately $20 billion since its inception.
Unlike some funding rounds, this was a primary round, meaning that no employee shares were sold. Sources close to Databricks indicate that the company facilitated two secondary rounds for employees in 2025. These rounds allowed employees the opportunity to sell portions of their holdings, ranging from 40% to 60% depending on the size of their individual share allocations.
In both secondary rounds, the full amount of funds allocated for employee share sales was not exhausted, suggesting that employees chose to retain a larger portion of their shares than they were permitted to sell. These secondary rounds provided employees with opportunities to liquidate their holdings, while Databricks remained unhurried about pursuing an initial public offering (IPO).
Databricks co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi explained in an interview with TechCrunch that the funds raised in this new round are specifically earmarked for two key projects: the development of a database for AI agents and the advancement of its AI agent platform. These initiatives represent strategic investments in emerging areas of artificial intelligence.
A significant portion of the investment will be directed towards enhancing Databricks’ database for AI agents, with the goal of making it broadly accessible to all customers. This product, named Lakebase, was initially launched in June at the company’s annual tech conference. Lakebase leverages the open-source database Postgres and is designed to meet enterprise-grade requirements, supporting corporate developers’ “vibe-coding” projects. This positions Lakebase as a direct competitor to platforms like Supabase.
Ghodsi emphasized the potential of the database market, stating, “The database market is $105 billion of TAM [total addressable market], of revenue, sitting there, kind of unaffected in the last 40 years.” He alluded to Oracle’s long-standing dominance in the database sector, suggesting that Databricks aims to disrupt this established market.
Ghodsi further highlighted a shift in database creation trends. “Here’s the interesting statistic nobody’s paying attention to: a year ago, we saw in the data that 30% of the databases were not created by humans. For the first time, they were created by AI agents. And this year, the statistic is 80%,” he stated. He predicted that within a year, AI agents will be responsible for creating 99% of new databases.
Ghodsi elaborated on the strategic importance of catering to AI agents as users. “There’s a new user. The user is not human. It’s an AI agent, and if we just double down on making that user persona successful, that’s the wedge to disrupt that TAM,” he explained, suggesting that focusing on the needs of AI agent users will be key to challenging the existing database market.
Regarding how Lakebase will differentiate itself from Supabase and other platforms building Postgres-based databases for agents, Ghodsi emphasized the importance of “separated compute and storage.” By decoupling compute resources from storage, Databricks aims to provide a cost-effective solution for users creating numerous databases. “Because these agents are super fast. They just spin up lots of databases, much faster than humans can, but you don’t want to go bankrupt because you’re doing that,” he clarified.
The second major area of investment for Databricks is its AI agent platform, Agent Bricks, which also launched in June. Ghodsi commented on the industry’s focus on artificial superintelligence, stating, “Everybody’s super focused on superintelligence. But that’s not what we need in organizations.”
Ghodsi believes that the immediate need for companies is not advanced AI capable of solving complex problems, but rather AI agents that can reliably automate routine tasks. He used the examples of onboarding new employees and answering personalized HR benefit inquiries as areas where AI agents can significantly improve efficiency. “I think that’s a much bigger opportunity, actually, for the worldwide GDP and for organizations,” he stated, suggesting that Agent Bricks’ focus on practical applications will provide a competitive advantage.
Ghodsi also acknowledged the competitive landscape for AI talent and the need to attract skilled professionals. “As you know, it’s pretty expensive to hire AI talent right now,” he said, indicating that part of the funding will be used to recruit and retain top AI experts.
