While the opportunity for initial public offerings may be emerging, certain established tech companies appear content to remain private. This perspective is understandable: historically, going public served as a key method for raising capital. If a firm can secure immense funding privately, thereby avoiding the intense scrutiny of public markets, the incentive to IPO diminishes significantly.

Databricks exemplifies this trend. The data intelligence company has just secured over $4 billion in a Series L funding round, achieving a valuation of $134 billion. This represents a 34% increase from its $100 billion valuation just three months prior. Notably, this marks Databricks' third major venture fundraising event in under a year.

The capital infusion aligns with the company's strategic focus on developing products for the AI era. Its portfolio now includes a database designed for AI agents, a dedicated AI agent platform, and applications that enable businesses to build and deploy data-driven AI solutions.

A significant investment is being channeled into Lakebase, its AI agent database. Built upon the open-source Postgres system—technology acquired through the $1 billion purchase of startup Neon—Lakebase targets corporate developers engaged in "vibe-coding" projects. Alongside this, the company's Agent Bricks platform is engineered to help enterprises create and implement AI agents capable of utilizing their proprietary data.

To bolster its offerings, Databricks has also established substantial partnerships, signing deals worth hundreds of millions with leading AI labs Anthropic and OpenAI to integrate their models into its enterprise products.

Series L rounds are relatively rare, making Databricks' continued success in raising venture capital at escalating valuations particularly notable. The company was valued at approximately $60 billion this time last year, underscoring strong investor confidence in its mission to empower companies to leverage data for AI initiatives.

This confidence appears well-founded. The company announced on Tuesday that it now boasts an annual run-rate revenue exceeding $4.8 billion, a 55% year-over-year increase. More than $1 billion of this revenue is attributed directly to its AI products.

"The parallel rise of vibe coding and generative AI is accelerating the development of data-intelligent applications in the enterprise," the company stated. "Databricks will use this new capital to help customers build AI apps and agents on their proprietary data, leveraging Lakebase as the system of record, Databricks Apps as the user experience layer, and Agent Bricks to power multi-agent systems."

Reports indicate the new funds will also support global expansion, financing thousands of new jobs across Asia, Europe, and Latin America, as well as the recruitment of additional AI researchers.

"Enterprises are rapidly reimagining how they build intelligent applications, and the convergence of generative AI with new coding paradigms is opening the door to entirely new workloads," said Databricks co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi.

The funding round was led by Insight Partners, Fidelity, and J.P. Morgan Asset Management. Additional participants included Andreessen Horowitz, BlackRock, Blackstone, Coatue, GIC, MGX, NEA, Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, Robinhood Ventures, T. Rowe Price Associates, Temasek, Thrive Capital, and Winslow Capital.