Ali Ghodsi, co-founder and CEO of Databricks, speaks at a press conference at Databricks’ Data and AI Summit in San Francisco on June 12, 2024.
Jordan Novet | CNBC
Databricks, the data analytics software vendor that’s among the most richly valued private U.S. tech companies, told investors on Wednesday that annualized revenue will reach $2.4 billion by the midpoint of this year.
Annualized sales through July, or the first six months of fiscal 2025, will increase 60% from a year earlier, Databricks CFO Dave Conte said at an investor briefing concurrent with the company’s Data and AI Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday.
Databricks’ growth contrasts with parts of the software industry that have continued to struggle since soaring inflation and rising interest rates in 2022 put an end to the extended bull market. In recent weeks Okta, Salesforce, UiPath and other software companies have blamed disappointing results or guidance on the economy or other macro issues.
“Obviously there’s some volatility going on in enterprise software, but I’ve been really eager to get up and share how we’re performing financially,” Conte said. “It’s pretty exciting.”
Databricks is one of a handful of prominent venture-backed software makers that have long been on the path to an IPO. Others include Canva, Figma and Stripe. However, the IPO market has been quiet for over two years, even with some activity in 2024. In April, security software company Rubrik debuted on the New York Stock Exchange.
While Conte didn’t provide an update on Databricks’ plans to go public, he did say that business is strengthening. In March, the company told media outlets outlets that it generated $1.6 billion in revenue for the year ending Jan. 31, up more than 50% year over year. The 11-year-old startup had an annualized run rate of $1.5 billion and 50% growth for the quarter that ended July 31, 2023.
When it issued those figures in September, Databricks said it had raised $500 million in funding, valuing the company at $43 billion. Top competitor Snowflake, which debuted on the NYSE in 2020, was valued at $43.6 billion at the end of Wednesday’s trading session.
In the January quarter, Databricks saw 221 transactions that exceeded $1 million, Conte said. Existing clients are spending more, and the company is adding Fortune 500 clients, he said. Net revenue retention in the 2024 fiscal year, which ended in January, was higher than 140%. That figure indicates growth from existing customers.
Meanwhile, Databricks is investing in growth. Research and development spending as a percentage of revenue was 33% in each of the past three fiscal years, compared with 19% for its peer group and 23% for a group of 89 companies that have gone public since 2018, Conte said. Databricks’ subscription gross margin for the 2024 fiscal year was above 80%.
Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi told reporters in a briefing on Wednesday that some growth is coming from the data warehouse product the company launched in 2020. That business topped $400 million in annualized revenue.
“I think by any B2B standard, it’s one of the fastest-growing probably out there,” Ghodsi said.
Databricks and Snowflake have been trying to reduce costs of cleaning up and running queries for clients by using a standard format called Apache Iceberg. Last week Databricks said it was paying over $1 billion to buy Tabular, a startup whose founders created Iceberg. Snowflake was also bidding for Tabular, CNBC reported.
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