Finance

Databricks closes in on multibillion funding round at $55 billion valuation

Published

6 months ago

November 26, 2024

Ali Ghodsi, co-founder and chief executive officer of Databricks Inc., speaks during a Bloomberg Technology television interview in San Francisco on Oct. 22, 2019.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

One of the world’s most valuable private tech companies is raising billions more in cash and is in no rush to go public, sources told CNBC.

San Francisco-based Databricks is raising at least another $5 billion in its latest funding round — though it could raise up to $8 billion given the round is ongoing — according to several sources who asked not to be named because the discussions were private. The latest raise would value the company at $55 billion and could top the largest round of the year by OpenAI.

The latest funding is designed to help Databricks employees sell shares, a source said. Reducing pressure from employees to cash out also reduces the need for a liquidity event like an IPO. One source said the funding round makes Databricks’ highly anticipated public debut less urgent. But it could still happen in the back half of next year.

Databricks was founded in 2013 and sells software that helps enterprises organize data, and build their own generative AI products. It uses machine learning to help clients from AT&T to Walgreens parse through and make sense of massive troves of data.

This equity round could be the largest in a banner year for artificial intelligence funding. One in three venture dollars this year has gone to an AI startup, according to CB Insights. OpenAI holds the record in 2024, raising $6.6 billion in October at a $157 valuation.

Databricks last raised $500 million at a $43 billion valuation. It’s backed by Nvidia, Capital One, Andreessen Horowitz, Baillie Gifford, Fidelity, Insight Partners, Tiger Global and others.

The Information first reported that Databricks was raising money.

The firm has capitalized on the momentum in artificial intelligence. This summer, it acquired MosaicML, a $1.3 billion software startup that focuses on large language models that can churn out natural-sounding text. Databricks told investors earlier this year that annualized revenue would hit $2.4 billion by the midpoint of 2024.

Its decision to stay private comes as software stocks have struggled to get out of a rut brought on by higher interest rates. Shares of rival Snowflake are down 13% this year. While its fellow software IPO candidates like Stripe have taken significant haircuts on valuations, Databricks has grown its value while expanding its employee base.

CEO Ali Ghodsi said at a conference last week that he’s optimizing for the success of Databricks over the next decade or two, not optimizing for an IPO.

“If we were going to go the earliest would be, let’s say, mid-next year, or something like that,” Ghodsi said at Newcomer’s Cerebral Valley AI Conference. “So, you know, could happen next year.”

A Databricks spokesperson declined to comment.

Finance

Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says markets are too complacent

Published

6 hours ago

May 19, 2025

Business Finance News

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, leaves the U.S. Capitol after a meeting with Republican members of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on the issue of de-banking on Feb. 13, 2025.

Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Monday that markets and central bankers underappreciate the risks created by record U.S. deficits, tariffs and international tensions.

Dimon, the veteran CEO and chairman of the biggest U.S. bank by assets, explained his worldview during his bank’s annual investor day meeting in New York. He said he believes the risks of higher inflation and even stagflation aren’t properly represented by stock market values, which have staged a comeback from lows in April.

“We have huge deficits; we have what I consider almost complacent central banks,” Dimon said. “You all think they can manage all this. I don’t think” they can, he said.

“My own view is people feel pretty good because you haven’t seen effective tariffs” yet, Dimon said. “The market came down 10%, [it’s] back up 10%; that’s an extraordinary amount of complacency.”

Dimon’s comments follow Moody’s rating agency downgrading the U.S. credit rating on Friday over concerns about the government’s growing debt burden. Markets have been whipsawed the past few months over worries that President Donald Trump‘s trade policies will raise inflation and slow the world’s largest economy.

Dimon said Monday that he believed Wall Street earnings estimates for S&P 500 companies, which have already declined in the first weeks of Trump’s trade policies, will fall further as companies pull or lower guidance amid the uncertainty.

In six months, those projections will fall to 0% earnings growth after starting the year at around 12%, Dimon said. If that were to happen, stocks prices will likely fall.

“I think earnings estimates will come down, which means PE will come down,” Dimon said, referring to the “price to earnings” ratio tracked closely by stock market analysts.

The odds of stagflation, “which is basically a recession with inflation,” are roughly double what the market thinks, Dimon added.

Separately, one of Dimon’s top deputies said that corporate clients are still in “wait-and-see” mode when it comes to acquisitions and other deals.

Investment banking revenue is headed for a “mid-teens” percentage decline in the second quarter compared with the year-earlier period, while trading revenue was trending higher by a “mid-to-high” single digit percentage, said Troy Rohrbaugh, a co-head of the firm’s commercial and investment bank.

On the ever-present question of Dimon’s timeline to hand over the CEO reins to one of his deputies, Dimon said that nothing changed from his guidance last year, when he said he would likely remain for less than five more years.

“If I’m here for four more years, and maybe two more” as executive chairman, Dimon said, “that’s a long time.”

Of all the executive presentations given Monday, consumer banking chief Marianne Lake had the longest speaking time at a full hour. She is considered a top successor candidate, especially after Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Piepszak said she would not be seeking the top job.

Finance

Stocks making the biggest moves midday: UNH, TSLA, BABA

Published

8 hours ago

May 19, 2025

Business Finance News

Finance

Klarna doubles losses in first quarter as IPO remains on hold

Published

11 hours ago

May 19, 2025

Business Finance News

Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna, speaking at a fintech event in London on Monday, April 4, 2022.

Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg via Getty Images

Klarna saw its losses jump in the first quarter as the popular buy now, pay later firm applies the brakes on a hotly anticipated U.S. initial public offering.

The Swedish payments startup said its net loss for the first three months of 2025 totaled $99 million — significantly worse than the $47 million loss it reported a year ago. Klarna said this was due to several one-off costs related to depreciation, share-based payments and restructuring.

Revenues at the firm increased 13% year-over-year to $701 million. Klarna said it now has 100 million active users and 724,00 merchant partners globally.

It comes as Klarna remains in pause mode regarding a highly anticipated U.S. IPO that was at one stage set to value the SoftBank-backed company at over $15 billion.

Klarna put its IPO plans on hold last month due to market turbulence caused by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plans. Online ticketing platform StubHub also put its IPO plans on ice.

Prior to the IPO delay, Klarna had been on a marketing blitz touting itself as an artificial intelligence-powered fintech. The company partnered up with ChatGPT maker OpenAI in 2023. A year later, Klarna used OpenAI technology to create an AI customer service assistant.

Last week, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the company was able to shrink its headcount by about 40%, in part due to investments in AI.