Databricks Inc. said it generated $1 billion in annual revenue and has diversified its business with new products and tools for artificial intelligence.
The closely held software maker, which in August effectively forecast the $1 billion goal, saw sales jump more than 60% in the fiscal year ended in January. Its data warehousing product, Databricks SQL, which competes with Snowflake Inc., passed $100 million in annualized recurring revenue in April, according to a spokesperson. Those figures haven’t previously been disclosed.
Databricks is “the fastest-growing software company according to our records,” Chief Executive Officer Ali Ghodsi said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg TV. Demand is being fueled by companies looking to get data organized to take advantage of AI and to reduce high cloud bills, he said.
The data warehousing product “helps organizations cut down their costs” significantly, which fits customers’ current concerns about their spending for cloud computing, Ghodsi said.
Databricks, which makes software that helps companies organize and analyze large amounts of information, has raised $3.5 billion and commanded a $38 billion valuation in a 2021 funding round. Late last year, the company reduced its internal valuation, according to a report from The Information. Still, Databricks is the eighth most-valuable startup in the world, according to research firm CB Insights.
While Ghodsi said an initial public offering will eventually happen, “right now the markets are shut down.” He said that staying private allows Databricks to make investments in fields such as AI, which might be more difficult if company was public.
As part of that effort, Databricks announced the acquisition of a stealth startup focused on storage systems for AI called Rubicon. While terms were undisclosed, Ghodsi said “right now you have to pay up” for AI-related companies.
--With assistance from Caroline Hyde.
(Updates with additional CEO comments in the fourth paragraph. A previous version corrected the recurring revenue figure.)