Nancy Pelosi, Cathie Wood Make Millions On Databricks' New $100 Billion Valuation

Privately held data and AI company Databricks is now worth $100 billion thanks to a new funding round.

Ahead of a potential IPO in 2025 or 2026, the new funding round makes existing investors such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Cathie Wood and NVIDIA Corp NVDA big winners.

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What Happened: Databricks is now valued at $100 billion in a new Series K funding round, increasing the company’s value 61% from 2024 valuations.

The new funding will be used for product development and potential M&A activity in the AI space.

Databricks has over 15,000 customers and competes with several companies, including Snowflake SNOW and Palantir Technologies PLTR, in the data analytics and AI data spaces.

With the new funding, existing investors from the company’s 2023 and 2024 funding rounds have watched their investments grow nicely.

This includes Ark Invest, which holds shares of the company via the Ark Venture Fund ARKVX. The Cathie Wood-led fund invested in Databricks in the September 2023 funding round when the company was valued at $43 billion. This means Ark Invest is up more than double on its investment, depending on whether it has participated in subsequent investment rounds.

Databricks is currently the 21^st-largest holding in the Ark Venture Fund at 1.52% of assets. That is based on valuations from July 31, which means the stake has likely increased in value.

Nvidia also took an initial stake in Databricks during the $43 billion valuation round in September 2023.

Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi disclosed an investment in Databricks via Forge Investments on March 4, 2024. The investment, made by her husband and venture capitalist Paul Pelosi, was listed as being in a range of $1 million to $5 million.

The Forge Investments website shows a value of $73.50 per share for Databricks and $43.4 billion valuation for the September 2023 funding round and on the site in 2024, around the time the Pelosis invested.

While it is unknown exactly what valuation the congresswoman and her husband invested in the company at, the stake was likely made near the $43 billion valuation.

Based on the new funding valuation of $100 billion, Databricks is now worth 132.6% more than the $43 billion funding round. This would make the $1 million to $5 million investment now worth $2.326 million to $11.63 million.

The investment in Databricks focused attention on Pelosi, given the size, the company being private and the company being headquartered in San Francisco within her congressional district.

Did You Know?

What’s Next: With the new funding round, Databricks may put off an IPO for more time.

In 2024, Databricks CEO and co-founder Ali Ghodsi said 2024 wasn’t the year to file an IPO.

“This year was an election year. We wanted to get some stability — people are worried about interest rates, inflation,” he said, as reported by TechCrunch. “So we said ‘Look, it’s dumb to IPO this year,’ so we’re definitely going to wait.”

Ghodsi said at the time that funding rounds have given early employees the ability to cash out and funding rounds could have been larger based on demand.

“The earliest theoretical possibility of an IPO would be next year,” Ghodsi said last year, noting that the IPO could also push out to 2026 instead. It’s less important to go public now than in past years, he explained.

Ghodsi also recognized that high interest in artificial intelligence companies and ballooning valuations could signal a potential bubble for the sector.

“I mean, it’s peak AI bubble. It doesn’t take a genius to know that a company with five people which has no product, no innovation, no IP — just recent grads — [is not] worth hundreds of millions, sometimes billions.”

Several recent IPOs have seen strong demand from investors and rival company Palantir has soared in valuation to all-time highs, a valuation that is now being questioned by short seller Citron Research.

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Photos: Shutterstock; Wood, courtesy Ark Invest