Databricks, set to raise massive $10B funding round, looks to grow Seattle-area footprint

Databricks is the talk of the tech world this week as the San Francisco data and AI company is raising one of the largest venture capital deals ever.

The company’s $10 billion Series J funding round gives Databricks a gigantic valuation of $62 billion — up from $43 billion last year — in the latest sign of the frenetic AI race.

Founded in 2013, Databricks helps organizations manage and analyze large volumes of data. It also provides tools to build machine learning and AI applications. More than 60% of the Fortune 500 use Databricks’ products.

Databricks is available on the major cloud platforms, and also competes with the likes of Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and others.

The company, led by co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi, grew revenue in the October quarter by more than 60% year-over-year and expects to reach $3 billion in annual revenue run rate by the end of next month.

Databricks has two offices in the Seattle region — an R&D facility in Seattle, just south of downtown, and another location in Bellevue.

It now employs nearly 400 people across the two offices, according to a spokesperson, and plans to grow headcount in 2025. That’s up from 52 people in 2021.

Databricks is one of more than 100 companies that have satellite engineering offices in the area, which ranked No. 2 on CBRE’s latest list of top tech hubs in the U.S. and Canada.

OpenAI, Pinterest, and Brex recently opened new offices in the region.

The Bay Area and Seattle are home to a majority of the country’s AI engineers, according to a report from San Francisco venture capital firm SignalFire.