Databricks creates venture fund to help young companies, startups

The San Francisco-based data analytics software company has announced Databricks Ventures, a strategic investment to encourage data and AI technology generation. 

Databricks’“Lakehouse Fund” will focus on young companies by extending the lakehouse ecosystem to create the next generation of data and AI-powered companies. 

Databricks has earmarked $2.6B as a venture fund. It will allow the company to strategically invest in the ecosystem of startups built on the Databricks platform and its open-source projects. 

“We plan to support the next wave of innovative startups and founders building the future of data, analytics, and AI, especially those in the open-source community,” said Ali Ghodsi, co-founder and CEO of Databricks. 

Databricks Ventures investments will target startups helping them with growth-stage funding by institutional venture capital firms. Portfolio companies will benefit with the growing lakehouse ecosystem and developer and open source communities and can reach broader audiences by partnering with Databricks go-to-market programmes. 

Databricks is a data and AI company. More than 5,000 organisations worldwide, including Comcast, Condé Nast, H&M, and over 40% of the Fortune 500, rely on the Databricks Lakehouse Platform to unify their data, analytics and AI.