Analytics company Databricks announced that its valuation is projected to increase by 61 percent to exceed $100 billion in a funding round occurring less than a year after its previous one, highlighting a strong interest from investors in artificial intelligence startups.

Based in San Francisco, California, the company serves 15,000 clients, including payments company Block, energy leader Shell, and electric-vehicle manufacturer Rivian, and stated it has finalized a term sheet for a Series K funding round, though the amount being raised remains undisclosed.

In late 2022, Databricks secured $10 billion in one of the largest venture capital funding rounds ever, which raised its valuation to $62 billion.

The company plans to allocate part of the new funds towards product innovation and pursuing mergers and acquisitions in the AI sector, as businesses and governments globally scramble to capitalize on the efficiencies offered by this emerging yet rapidly advancing technology.

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"Databricks is capitalizing on an unparalleled worldwide demand for AI applications and agents, transforming corporations' data into valuable resources. We are excited that this funding round is already oversubscribed," states Ali Ghodsi, co-founder and CEO.

Startups are opting to remain private for extended periods due to rising interest rates and an erratic market for initial public offerings in recent years. There is also sufficient capital available for substantial late-stage rounds, as private market investors hold record amounts of uninvested capital.

Reports earlier this month indicated that OpenAI is negotiating to finalize a sale of employee shares, potentially valuing the parent company of ChatGPT at around $500 billion.

Furthermore, the AI and analytics firm C5i has announced its enhanced partnership with Databricks through the introduction of its Marketing Data Cloud (MDC), a validated solution built on Databricks that integrates marketing data and assesses marketing results across various channels.

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The Databricks Data Intelligence Platform makes analytics and intelligent applications more accessible by consolidating customers’ marketing data with powerful AI models tailored to their specific businesses. C5i’s Marketing Data Cloud (MDC) platform is grounded on the Databricks Lakehouse architecture, utilizing open data formats and governance to ensure complete control over all data for the customer.