Databricks has been well funded from the start.
In 2013, seven data scientists and professors pitched Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz, on an idea for a new data management company that would build the next generation of data analytics. Ten years after the fact—and billions in funding later—more than 9,000 companies use the Databricks platform, ranging from AT&T to Toyota, to store and update their data or power machine learning capabilities. While it’s not so easy to pinpoint its value in the current market cycle, Databricks notched a $38 billion valuation from venture investors in 2021, establishing it as one of the world’s 10 most valuable startups.
After meeting with the Databricks team a decade ago, Horowitz handed the startup $14 million for its Series A to get the ball rolling—a sizable check for a team of academics and programmers. That first round valued the company at $47 million, according to a person familiar with the matter, and it gave the team plenty of capital to get started. Here’s the first pitch deck they shopped around to investors—a 36-page, poorly formatted presentation on how the team planned to use an open-source strategy to make enterprise data and software more powerful:
While the pitch deck may have helped the seven cofounders articulate their vision, it didn’t do much to help the team land the investment. A16z’s Horowitz told Fortune it was one of the worst pitch decks he had ever seen. Four years later, the Databricks team had learned a thing or two about graphic design. Here’s the pitch deck Databricks used to fundraise its $140 million Series D round, also led by a16z, that would ultimately close in 2018:
Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi tells Fortune he spent “many, many hours” on the Series D deck, though he adds that “it doesn’t look like it.”
“You’re raising hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s a serious thing, and you want to convey that really properly,” Ghodsi says.
The Series D deck was the last formal presentation Databricks put together to fundraise, Ghodsi says, pointing out that it’s been “significantly easier” for the company to raise money since then. Without a formal presentation, Databricks still managed to scoop up more than $3 billion in capital through four subsequent rounds.
To read more about the company’s growth trajectory and where its valuation stands now you can read Fortune’s feature story here.
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