Meta invests in Databricks: New heights for AI startup

The AI startup Databricks has announced that Meta Platforms has joined as a new investor in a substantial funding round amounting to 10 billion dollars. This investment is expected to significantly promote the growth and development of new products by Databricks. The completed Series J funding round envisions an impressive valuation of 62 billion dollars for the company. Additionally, Databricks has secured a credit line of 5.25 billion dollars, led by JPMorgan Chase, as well as Barclays, Citi, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. Founded in 2013 in San Francisco, Databricks offers a platform that enables users to process and analyze complex data from various sources and to develop AI applications. Investments in AI startups have been booming since the remarkable success of OpenAI's ChatGPT, which has led to an increased use of technology in businesses. Under the leadership of Sam Altman, OpenAI raised a total of 6.6 billion dollars from investors in 2024. Companies like Meta are investing intensively in the development of large language models (LLMs), which aim to understand and generate human-like text. Databricks works closely with Meta's Llama team, which is developing a family of open-source LLMs. "Thousands of customers use Llama on Databricks, and we work closely with Meta to optimally serve these enterprise customers," said Databricks co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi. The deepened partnership through this investment was therefore a natural step for both parties. More than 10,000 organizations, including Comcast, Block, Rivian, and Shell, rely on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform for data management and analysis of AI applications.