Databricks closed a $5 billion funding round on Aug. 13, 2026, and priced the company at $190 billion1. PitchBook disagreed. A month later, one of its analysts ran his own numbers and landed at $68.7 billion, close to a third of Databricks' price3.
Harrison Rolfes wrote PitchBook's report. He covers late-stage private companies there3. "Databricks is a high-quality business but an unattractive investment at the current price," Rolfes said.
PitchBook prices Databricks 64 percent below its $190 billion round
Two estimates of what Databricks is worth today, billions of dollars
The first column is the price Databricks' investors paid in August 2026. The second is PitchBook analyst Harrison Rolfes' discounted-cash-flow estimate of the operating business.
PitchBook's model prices the operating business alone; the round price also reflects what specific investors paid to get a stake, a separate question entirely.
Sources: Databricks [1]; Morningstar [3]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| August round | $190.0B |
| PitchBook model | $68.7B |
The Round That Set $190 Billion
Coatue led the August round. Blackstone, MGX, T. Rowe Price and Sixth Street Growth joined, alongside roughly twenty other backers1. Sixth Street Growth was the only new name; the rest had backed Databricks before.
The company backed its own price with hard numbers, and Databricks' run rate crossed $7 billion in the second quarter alone1. Growth held above 80 percent. Free cash flow stayed positive, adjusted, over the past year.
The price climbed fast to get here. Databricks was valued at $62 billion in December 2024. It passed $100 billion within nine months, then $134 billion by February, then $190 billion in August6751.
Databricks' valuation triples to $190 billion in under two years
Valuation Databricks announced at each funding round, billions of dollars, December 2024 to August 2026
Each point is the valuation Databricks announced when that round closed; the August 2025 point is a floor, the only figure the company disclosed for that round.
The August 2025 figure is a floor; Databricks disclosed only "over $100 billion" and kept the exact number private.
Sources: Databricks [1]; CNBC [5]; Databricks [6]; Databricks [7]. Chart by Ryan Elliott Dennis.
The numbers behind this chart
| Period | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Dec. 2024 | $62B | |
| Aug. 2025 | $100B | Databricks disclosed only "over $100 billion" |
| Feb. 2026 | $134B | |
| Aug. 2026 | $190B |
Demand ran wild. Chief executive Ali Ghodsi set out to raise $1 billion. The Information reported on the talks, and a flood of callers followed. "The interest level was just insane. Just from this select group of investors that we looked at, there was $15 billion of interest," Ghodsi told TechCrunch8.
Insight Partners@insightpartnersCongratulations to the @databricks team on their latest strategic funding round.
The company reported closing $5 billion at a $190 billion valuation, having surpassed a $7 billion revenue run-rate and grown more than 80% year over year. Insight Partners is proud to continue…
Insight Partners, a Databricks investor since an earlier round, posted its congratulations within hours of the announcement.
PitchBook's Math Lands at $68.7 Billion
Rolfes stands apart from Databricks' own investors. He skipped the headline number and built his own model instead. The model projects Databricks' revenue and cash flow out ten years, then discounts those dollars back to today's terms3.
The model assumes 48 percent revenue growth next year. Then growth slows. Single digits arrive by the mid-2030s. By 2035, Databricks generates $9.3 billion of cash a year, Rolfes projects3.
That stream of cash supports $68.7 billion today. The gap between that figure and the August price comes to 64 percent3. That math is blunt.
Rolfes used a public yardstick: Snowflake, Databricks' closest competitor. Snowflake trades near 20 times its expected revenue this year. Databricks' $190 billion price runs to 27 times its $7 billion run rate, well past that floor3.
Growth explains part of that gap. Rolfes credits some of the premium to Databricks' faster pace. One difference remains: Snowflake's figures pass through an outside audit every quarter. Databricks counts its own3.
Rolfes modeled a generous scenario anyway: 80 percent gross margins, growth holding at target, market conditions cooperating3. It still falls short. That scenario tops out at $182.1 billion, below $190 billion.
"The central question is no longer whether Databricks is a great business," Rolfes said. "It is whether the price leaves enough return for the next investor"3.
The Case Investors Are Making
Thomas Laffont sees it differently. He co-founded Coatue, the firm that led the round, and made his case the day it closed1.
"Databricks has spent a decade being early to where AI was headed. Now it's the infrastructure the industry builds and scales AI on," Laffont said1.
Timing is the wager here. Databricks sells the tools companies use to build AI agents. Lakebase handles live data, Genie answers business questions, and Unity AI Gateway tracks spending across models1.
Two of those products already carry their own run rates. Lakehouse, the data warehousing product behind the platform, crossed $1.5 billion, growing more than 100 percent. Lakebase passed $100 million on its own1.
"Enterprises don't just want AI that talks. They want agents working across their business that remember context, deliver accurate answers, and execute work without blowing through their budgets," said Ali Ghodsi, Databricks' co-founder and chief executive1.
Why Ghodsi Still Waits on an IPO
Ghodsi keeps pointing past this year. He told CNBC in August: "We're not just a company that wants to stay in the private, but right now I just think there would be too much distraction in the public market"2.
Sanjeev Mohan reads the same reluctance against a crowded calendar. He analyzes enterprise software at the research firm SanjMo4. Other analysts agree.
"Ghodsi has been open that he views this as a poor year to go public with SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic all crowding the IPO conversation, and he's pointed to a possible window in 2027," Mohan said4.
Ghodsi has made one promise, though. "We will go public, I promise," he told CNBC4. He left the date open.
Michael Ni, an analyst at Constellation Research, reads the eventual listing as a strategic opening. Going public, he told TechTarget, would let Databricks "move from a successful private platform to a consolidator and long-term standard for the enterprise AI stack"4.
What to do
Divide any private AI valuation by its own revenue run rate before trusting the headline number. Databricks' price runs to 27 times revenue. Ask the same question about any company on your own list, and check whether its figures get an outside audit.
Treat $68.7 billion as the floor case and $190 billion as the number investors are paying for growth. Price your own exposure somewhere between the two.
Watch for a public S-1 before trusting either number fully. A filing would give both Rolfes' model and the company's own figures the audit each still skips.
By the numbers
- $190 billion: Databricks' valuation in its August 2026 round1.
- 64 percent: the discount PitchBook's $68.7 billion estimate marks from that round3.
- $7 billion: Databricks' reported annualized revenue run rate entering the round1.
- 27 times: the revenue multiple that price implies, against Snowflake's 20 times3.
- $15 billion: investor interest drawn after Databricks asked for $1 billion8.
- 2027: the earliest year analyst Sanjeev Mohan expects an IPO window4.
- $62 billion: the company's valuation in December 2024, less than two years before this round6.
What to watch
Watch Databricks' next revenue disclosure for the growth rate both Rolfes and Laffont are betting on. A confidential S-1 filing would be the clearest sign the 2027 window is firming into a real date. Either one would hand outside investors the audited numbers Rolfes says are missing today34.
Sources
- Databricks, "Databricks Grows >80% YoY, Surpasses $7B Revenue Run-Rate, Scales Lakebase, Genie, and Unity AI Gateway," Databricks, Aug. 13, 2026, https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/databricks-grows-80-yoy-surpasses-7b-revenue-run-rate-scales
- CNBC, "Databricks wraps $5 billion funding round at $190 billion valuation," CNBC, Aug. 13, 2026, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/13/databricks-funding-round-190-billion-valuation.html
- Jacob Robbins, "Ahead of an IPO, the Maths Behind Databricks' $190 Billion Valuation Doesn't Add Up," Morningstar, Sept. 15, 2026, https://www.morningstar.com.au/stocks/ahead-an-ipo-maths-behind-databricks-190-billion-valuation-doesnt-add-up
- TechTarget, "IPO inevitable for Databricks after adding $5B in funding," TechTarget, Aug. 20, 2026, https://www.techtarget.com/data-technologies/news/366649434/IPO-inevitable-for-Databricks-after-adding-5B-in-funding
- CNBC, "Databricks completes $5 billion funding round with $2 billion in debt," CNBC, Feb. 9, 2026, https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/09/databricks-completes-5-billion-funding-round-with-2-billion-in-debt.html
- Databricks, "Databricks Is Raising $10B Series J Investment at $62B Valuation," Databricks, Dec. 17, 2024, https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/databricks-raising-10b-series-j-investment-62b-valuation
- Databricks, "Databricks Is Raising a Series K Investment at >$100 Billion Valuation," Databricks, Aug. 19, 2025, https://www.databricks.com/company/newsroom/press-releases/databricks-raising-series-k-investment-100-billion-valuation
- TechCrunch, "Databricks wanted to raise $1B, investors wanted $15B. It settled on $5B at a $190B valuation.," TechCrunch, Aug. 13, 2026, https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/13/databricks-wanted-to-raise-1b-investors-wanted-15b-it-settled-on-5b-at-a-190b-valuation/
