Palantir’s ‘Most Significant Threat’ Databricks Reportedly Chases $130B Valuation In New Funding Round

• In August, San Francisco, California-based Databricks said it had signed a term sheet for its Series K round, with backing from existing investors.
• That funding round valued the company at more than $100 billion.
• The company surpassed a $4 billion revenue run rate during the second quarter.

Databricks, a cloud-based data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) platform provider, is reportedly seeking to raise fresh financing, with the proposed funding round valuing the private company at over $130 billion.

The report arrives even as investors, particularly those seeking exposure to AI names, look ahead to the company’s public listing, rumored to occur either in late 2025 or early 2026. In a short report released in mid-August on Palantir Technologies, Inc. (PLTR), Andrew Left's Citron Research called Databricks the “most significant threat” to the Alex Karp-led company.

What We Know About Databricks’ Funding Round

Databricks is in talks to raise funds at a valuation 30% higher than its previous financing round, The Information reported, citing two people familiar with the discussions.

In August, San Francisco, California-based Databricks said it had signed a term sheet for its Series K round, with backing from existing investors, valuing the company at more than $100 billion. The company stated then that it expects to utilize the new capital to “accelerate its AI strategy — expanding Agent Bricks, investing in its new database offering Lakebase, and fueling global growth.”

Databricks announced a partnership with OpenAI in late September to bring frontier Intelligence to enterprises with Databricks' “Agent Bricks.”

Databricks — A Rising AI Powerhouse?

The company, founded in 2013 by the original creators of the lakehouse architecture and open source projects Apache Spark, Delta Lake, MLflow, and Unity Catalog, boasts of over 15,000 companies as among its customers, with more than 60% of the Fortune 500 companies relying on its platform.

Investors in the company include BlackRock, Salesforce Ventures, Microsoft, Tiger Global, Franklin Templeton, Sinewave Ventures, Fidelity Investments and Andreessen Horowitz.

Databricks announced in early September that it had surpassed a $4 billion revenue run rate in the second quarter, with year-over-year (YoY) growth exceeding 50%. The company’s AI products reached a $1 billion run rate earlier this year.

Potent Palantir Rival?

Citron already views Databricks as a giant, bracketing the company alongside Microsoft. In a short report, Citron noted that Palantir’s expansion into the enterprise space pits it against established software giants that dominate at scale.

The firm highlighted “Databricks—still private but already a cornerstone of data and AI for the

Fortune 500—as the most significant threat.” “Databricks offers true software economics, a risk Wall Street has yet to fully factor into Palantir’s valuation.” Palantir's market capitalization is a little over $400 billion, based on the stock's closing price on Monday. Palantir stock has more than doubled this year.

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