5. Databricks

Founders: Ali Ghodsi (CEO), Matei Zaharia, Reynold Xin, Ion Stoica, Patrick Wendell, Andy Konwinski, Arsalan Tavakoli-Shiraji
Launched: 2013
Headquarters: San Francisco
Funding: $4 billion
Valuation: $43 billion
Key technologies: Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, generative AI, low code/no code software, machine learning
Industry: Enterprise technology
Previous appearances on Disruptor 50 List: 4 (No. 31 in 2023)

After growing as one of the leaders of the data lakehouse movement, Databricks is evolving into the latest AI, helping firms to organize data and mine it for artificial intelligence application building within the enterprise on an open, unified foundation. 

Earlier on, Databricks disrupted traditional data warehouses and "on prem" software giants like Oracle and Teradata with its data analytics focus, and now it finds itself not only in a fierce competition with legacy enterprise software giants, but also with other breakthrough data companies of the past decade, like Snowflake, as well as Microsoft and its key gen AI partner — and this year's No. 1 Disruptor — OpenAI. It's also on the other side of the Disruptor equation: cited as a client of fellow Disruptor Glean.

It has customers across all industries – from health care to retail to supply chain and transportation, and into professional sports, such as the NBA and the reigning World Series champion Texas Rangers. 

In all, more than 10,000 companies around the world use Databricks technology to unify, manage and govern their data and analytics workflows, and to create an increasing number of enterprise AI applications that operate on that data. The list includes Condé Nast, AT&T, Block, Rivian, Walgreens, Mercedes Benz, Shell, Siemens, Toyota – and roughly 60% of the Fortune 500.

Its funding and valuation has steadily grown, with its most recent $500 million Series I funding round in September including new investor Nvidia, and putting its valuation at $43 billion — Databricks is a buyer of Nvidia graphics processing units. That followed the introduction of its open source large language models and instruction dataset in March 2023. "It made sense to partner more closely," CEO Ali Ghodsi told CNBC at the time of the funding. "At the core, we're in complementary markets."

It has also been making acquisitions to bulk up in AI, including enterprise AI platform MosaicML for $1.3 billion last June, helping to evolve its lakehouse foundation into a generative AI power — DB Mosaic AI is a suite of tools for building gen AI models. In addition, the company offers DatabricksIQ, an AI knowledge engine that automatically learns an organization's unique data concepts; while Databricks Assistant is a context-aware AI assistant built into the platform. 

Databricks also acquired Arcion, a leading data replication platform, last October; Okera, an AI-centric data governance platform last May; and AI storage startup Rubicon last June.

Databricks revenue topped $1 billion last year, and more recently reached $1.6 billion for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2024. Its data warehousing product, Databricks SQL, generated over $250 million in the fiscal year through the end of January. A Databricks IPO has been a hot topic for years, but Ghodsi told CNBC in October, "We are focused on continuing to build a successful, sustainable business for the long run. An IPO will be a milestone, but we're focused on satisfying the intense demand from customers, and ensuring their long term success."