Databricks closes a $1 billion Series K at a valuation above $100 billion

A round announced in two steps

On 19 August 2025, Databricks announced that it had signed a term sheet for a Series K round valuing the company at more than $100 billion ^[1]. A term sheet is the document in which investor and company write down the agreed terms of a deal; signing it is not the same as having the money in the bank.

Roughly three weeks later, on 8 September 2025, the company announced that the Series K was closing at $1 billion. The round was co-led by Andreessen Horowitz, Insight Partners, MGX, Thrive Capital and WCM Investment Management ^[2]. Venture rounds are conventionally labelled with letters in alphabetical order, so a "K" round sits far along that sequence and usually marks a company that has raised capital many times before.

The numbers released alongside it

The same announcement carried a set of operating figures. Databricks said it had crossed a $4 billion revenue run-rate in its fiscal second quarter and was growing more than 50% year over year ^[2]. Its AI products, meanwhile, had recently crossed a $1 billion revenue run-rate, and the company reported positive free cash flow over the previous 12 months ^[2].

A run-rate takes the revenue of a recent period and scales it up to a yearly figure; it is a snapshot of current pace, not a record of money already booked for a full year. Free cash flow is what is left of operating cash after the spending needed to keep the business running, so a positive figure means the company was not burning cash over that stretch.

The customer figures were unusually detailed for a private company. Databricks reported a net retention rate above 140%, and more than 650 customers each consuming over $1 million in annual run-rate ^[2]. Net retention compares what a group of existing customers spends in one period with what the same group spent a year earlier. A rate above 100% means old customers are expanding what they buy; a rate above 140% means that, on its own, the existing base is spending well over a third more than it did a year before.

Where the capital is meant to go

Databricks said the capital would accelerate its AI strategy, with expansion of Agent Bricks and of Lakebase, an operational database built on open-source Postgres ^[2]. Postgres is a widely used open-source relational database, and building a commercial product on top of it means the underlying storage and query engine are shared with a large open-source community rather than kept proprietary.

Why the round drew attention

The announcements put several things in one frame. The valuation passed $100 billion while the company was still private ^[1]. At the same time, Databricks reported both fast growth — above 50% year over year on a $4 billion run-rate — and positive free cash flow over the prior twelve months ^[2]. Growth and cash generation normally pull against each other in software companies, since fast growth usually costs money, so reporting both at once is the detail that stands out in the disclosure.

The AI revenue figure is a second marker. The company's AI products reached a $1 billion run-rate as a segment of the larger business, which places them among the parts of Databricks that are large enough to be counted separately ^[2].

The sequence of dates matters for reading the news. The August statement described terms not yet closed; the September statement described a closed round and supplied the operating numbers that gave the valuation its context ^[1][2]. Together they are a rare public accounting of the scale a private software company had reached by that point.