Data and AI darling, Databricks, has announced that it has acquired security startup, Okera. This acquisition is a huge milestone for the company, founded back in 2015, as the grand total for their valued investments stands at $38 billion. Databricks’ CEO, Ali Ghodsi, unpacked the phenomenal deal after spending months “kissing many frogs”, as he and his team sought the right partner in terms of mutual interest and big data analytics.
Nong Li, who was the main engineer at Databricks back in 2015 and 2016, is the founder of Okera. His brief time with the company had a great impact, resulting in strong ties being maintained between the two despite Li going on to form Okera. This data security startup boasts several joint customers with Databricks, a fact that likely furthered the business alliance between the two companies. Although terms of the deal are kept confidential, Ghodsi humorously noted that the price for the acquisition became more expensive in November last year when AI surged into the mainstream.
The successful merger comes as companies increasingly prioritize AI-related projects. AI-based language models, or LLMs, are are important for data companies like Databricks, with many of their clients wishing to protect sensitive private data while training these models. Okera’s filtering system prevents data from leaking, making it a valued partner in the safeguarding of customer data. As previously reported, Databricks is looking to expand their portfolio with larger acquisitions, and Okera marks as the fifth one to date. This move may be part of their attempt to build a unified platform for data, analytics, and AI.
About Databricks
Databricks is a cloud-based data analytics and machine learning platform. Founded in 2013, the goal of the unified platform is to make the data, analytics and AI process easier, faster, and more secure for customers. They have raised $3.5 billion and are currently valued at $38 billion after their successful 2021 Series H $1 billion investment.
About Nong Li
Nong Li is the founder and software engineer of data security startup Okera. Prior to this, he was the main engineer at Databricks, where he wrote the code for Apache Spark 2.0, bringing a 10x performance enhancement to the product. As part of the Okera–Databricks transaction, Li is said to have made a great return on his initial investment.
