Databricks, a pioneer in unified analytics, has made history by raising a staggering $10 billion in funding, valuing the company at a whopping $62 billion. This monumental deal marks the largest venture round ever, surpassing OpenAI's $6.6 billion raise in October.

The funding round was led by Insight Partners, along with new investor Thrive, and saw existing investors participate as well. According to George Mathew, managing director at Insight Partners, the deal was highly sought after, with calls going late into the night to finalize the agreement. Mathew, who has been an investor at Insight for the last four years, focusing on data, AI, and ML, described the opportunity as "generational" and something he "lives for."

The investment involved a significant secondary tender offer, allowing Databricks employees and existing investors to sell shares, with new preferred shares issued to new investors. Although the company didn't disclose the exact proportion of secondary shares, it referred to the $10 billion raise as "non-dilutive," implying a substantial portion.

Databricks' remarkable journey is a testament to its ability to adapt and innovate. Founded in 2013, the company initially created Spark, a technology that helped enterprises analyze their in-house big data quickly. However, with the rise of cloud-hosted data, Databricks could have become irrelevant. Instead, CEO Ali Ghodsi sought advice from Mathew, who had previously run big data company Alteryx as COO. Mathew initially thought Ghodsi's plan to enter the data warehousing market was ill-advised, but Ghodsi persevered, and Databricks launched its data warehouse product, Databricks SQL, in late 2020.

Databricks SQL quickly became a major competitor to Snowflake, and the company's fortunes were further boosted by the emergence of large language models (LLMs), which require high-quality enterprise data. As Mathew noted, "Where is this high-quality data coming from? For the enterprise, it's going to come from a place like Databricks."

With the IPO market still locked, investors are eager to get a piece of AI infrastructure products, such as data warehouses that can serve LLMs. Databricks is well-positioned to capitalize on this trend, with the company expecting to reach a $3 billion revenue run rate by the end of its fiscal fourth quarter, including a $600 million revenue run rate for Databricks SQL, up 150% year-over-year.

This record-breaking funding round is a testament to Databricks' innovative spirit and its ability to adapt to changing market conditions. As the company continues to grow and evolve, it's clear that its impact on the AI and big data landscape will be significant.