Artificial intelligence (AI) and Big Data analytics Startup Databricks has raised $140 million in its latest funding round to boost its investment in making AI achievable for enterprise companies. The San Francisco-based company made the announcement this week.
According to TechCrunch, the San Francisco-based startup has just received $140 million in its Series D funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The latest funding also brings new investors on board. These include New Enterprise Associates and Battery Ventures.
The newly received fund brings Databricks’ total capital raised to $247 million.
The company plans to use the fresh capital to beef up its enterprise analytics platform, hire additional manpower, accelerate growth strategy and fuel its international expansion. The company hopes that this new funding will give it the resources to stay ahead of the competition and get more customers.
A close look at the big data analytics platform
Founded in 2013 and based in San Francisco, California, Databricks is a cloud-based big data processing platform that helps companies use big data and AI. The company has been founded by the team that created that Apache Sparks, an open source cluster computing framework that aims to help users with their cloud-based data processing and data analytics.
The startup develops a cloud-based platform for working with Spark that provides organizations with automated cluster management and iPython-style computing interface.
The company’s core flagship product is the Unified Analytics platform, which makes the effective use of AI to enterprise companies. Databricks' clients include the likes of Shell, HP Enterprise Viacom, and Salesforce.com.
In addition to providing a big data processing platform, the company is also an organizer of massive open online courses about the open source tool Spark. The company also runs the largest Spark-focused conference event in the market, the Spark Summit.
According to CrunchBase, Databricks has made several fundraising activities in the last couple of years.
In September 2013, Databricks made its first big raise ($13.9 million) from Andreessen Horowitz. That funding round was aimed to offer an alternative to Google’s MapReduce system, a framework for processing big data sets.
In June 2014, it received another $33 million in its Series B funding round led by New Enterprise Associates, with some participation from Andreessen Horowitz. Then in 2016, the company raised additional $60 million in fresh capital. Since its founding in 2013, the company has raised a total of $247 million in venture capital. Databricks currently has 220 employees and around 500 customers.
Other AI-related news
AI is getting more attention and buzz these days. This fast-growing technology is making a disruption in today’s technology-driven society.
From smartphones to Samsung’s newly announced digital assistant Bixby, AI has become more widespread.
According to CrunchBase News, in 2016, the reported funding from the US-based startups in AI category hit a new level. The startup-focused website reports that around 233 companies have raised fresh capital, which brings a total investment around $1.06 billion.
Last week, another AI startup has received fresh capital from the venture capitalist. ThoughSpot has raised $60 million in its funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Capital One Growth Ventures.
ThoughSpot is an AI startup that specializes in providing data analytics tech for enterprise companies looking to find quickly find data. The company competes with the likes of Tableau Software and Microsoft Power BI.
