here may be growing skepticism about how AI companies will make money, but one area of the AI ecosystem where there's no question about revenue growth is data.

We got another example of it this week, when Databricks raised $4B in Series L funding, valuing the company at $134B. Databricks primarily needs the extra capital to fuel the growing demand for its technology to power AI agents. Databricks has both Lakebase, a database for AI agents, and Agent Bricks, an AI agent platform. In both cases, the company provides a foundation for businesses to deploy powerful agents while locking down privacy, security, and data sovereignty.

Let's put Databricks' fundraising round — and its growth — in perspective:

• It's the third time it has done a funding raise in less than a year
• Databricks had just raised $1B in August at a $100B valuation, so the company has jumped in value by 34% in three months
• The company's annual revenue run rate (ARR) hit $4.8B in Q3 and the company said 20% of that now comes directly from its AI products
• Arch-rival Snowflake also recently hit a $4.8B ARR, but it's a public company and is valued at a $74B market cap — that's quite a disparity from Databricks' $134B

The big question is how many more times Databricks will return to the private market for funding before going public.

Larry Dignan, Editor in Chief of Constellation Research, told The Deep View, "Databricks has the growth that's fueling its data-meets-AI strategy. What's unclear is whether that growth makes Databricks worth the valuation premium to Snowflake. It will be fun to watch these two fierce rivals battle when both are publicly traded."