Data analytics platform Databricks stated on Wednesday that it has agreed to accumulate Neon, a startup constructing an open supply different to AWS Aurora Postgres, for about $1 billion.
Databricks stated buying Neon’s tech would let it mix the startup’s serverless relational database administration system with its personal knowledge intelligence companies to let its clients deploy AI brokers extra effectively.
Founded in 2021 by CEO Nikita Shamgunov and software program engineers Heikki Linnakangas and Stas Kelvich, Neon affords a managed cloud-based database platform (with free and usage-based paid plans) that lets builders clone databases and preview adjustments earlier than they go to manufacturing. The platform robotically scales processor, reminiscence and storage in response to utilization, and helps branching — remoted database situations for testing and improvement — in addition to point-in-time restoration.
Those capabilities, Databricks says, are ideally suited to workloads run by AI brokers, which function sooner than human builders however typically require supervision to manage for errors. Citing current telemetry, the corporate stated 80% of the databases “provisioned on Neon have been created robotically by AI brokers slightly than by people.”
“The period of AI-native, agent-driven purposes is reshaping what a database should do,” stated Ali Ghodsi, co-founder and CEO of Databricks, in an announcement. “Neon proves it: 4 out of each 5 databases on their platform are spun up by code, not people. By bringing Neon into Databricks, we’re giving builders a serverless Postgres that may sustain with agentic pace, pay-as-you-go economics and the openness of the Postgres neighborhood.”
Neon has thus far raised $129.6 million, in response to Crunchbase, and its buyers embody Microsoft’s enterprise arm M12, General Catalyst, Menlo Ventures, and Notable Capital. Databricks, for its half, has thus far amassed greater than $19 billion in financing, and in January closed a $15.3 billion financing at a $62 billion valuation.
Databricks hasn’t held again from dipping into its warchest because it seeks to capitalize on the AI increase and place itself as a high service to construct, check and deploy AI fashions and brokers. The firm final June acquired knowledge administration firm Tabular, reportedly for almost $2 billion, and in 2023 purchased MosaicML, an open-source platform for coaching massive language fashions and deploying AI instruments, for $1.3 billion.
