Databricks’ employees are cashing in on its Series J

Databricks is raising $10 billion to buy employees’ stock.

12/18/24 1:24PM

Big news in the startup world as data-warehouse company Databricks announced a $10 billion Series J funding round yesterday that valued the company at $62 billion. Raising a “Series J” is a rare feat: SpaceX is one of the few other companies to hit this mark, raising its Series J in 2019.

In its press release, Databricks said that the $10 billion was expected to be “non-dilutive.” Dan Primack noted in his Axios Pro Rata newsletter this morning that “almost all of this $10 billion” is going to buy shares from employees. My question when seeing this was, why not just go public?

If the money is just going toward buying shares from employees, couldn’t Databricks accomplish the same thing through an IPO or direct listing? During an interview with Primack at the Axios AI Summit, CEO Ali Ghodsi explained why his company was holding off on going public:

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

One of the more interesting trends in the venture-backed startup market over the last few years has been IPO postponement by some of the strongest startups. Because the best-performing companies have high demand for their stock, they can create liquidity events for employees and investors through tender offers, eliminating one of the primary uses of an IPO. As I wrote two weeks ago,

“However, there are two very important reasons for companies to go public: easier access to capital and liquidity for shareholders. On the first point, publicly traded companies can easily raise new funding through secondary offerings, allowing them to opportunistically strengthen their balance sheets...
But what if you’re a company with a well-capitalized balance sheet that doesn’t need outside funding? Then your only real motivation for going public is liquidity. And what if private market investors will happily buy those shares from you and your employees? Then you could… just… stay private forever?”

For Databricks, the Series J makes a ton of sense. Employees can derisk their wealth by selling stock to investors, and the company can wait for a more opportune moment to go public when it might fetch an even higher valuation. Given the company’s accelerating revenue growth (revenue was up 60% year on year in Q3 2024), it’s not unreasonable to think that its valuation will continue to climb as it approaches a potential 2025 or 2026 IPO. Investors in the Series J round certainly hope so.

Max Knoblauch1h

The Trump administration is reportedly planning a 50% made-in-America requirement for USMCA tariff relief

Qualifying for USMCA-related lower tariffs may soon require more US-made vehicle components, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal.

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to introduce a 50% US content requirement for vehicles covered by the trade pact to receive lower tariffs. The content would be measured by cost, according to the WSJ.

There currently isn’t any US-specific requirement for those lower tariff rates, but in order to receive preferential tariffs, vehicles are must contain at least 75% regional content (components made in North America). Per Reuters reporting, the Trump admin is seeking to raise the Regional requirement to 82%.

These reported plans are subject to change as the US negotiates USMCA terms with Mexico over the next few months.

Overall, Tesla will likely have the easiest time qualifying for any stricter requirements. The automaker’s vehicles contained the highest amount of US/Canadian content in 2025, according to American University research. Ford, GM, and Stellantis all scored lower. Notably: the underlying government data that many domestic content measurements rely on intentionally combines US and Canadian components, so it’s difficult to know exactly how much of any given vehicle is specifically US-made.

Exclusive | Trump Administration Wants Autos Under USMCA to Be at Least 50% Made in America

These reported plans are subject to change as the US negotiates USMCA terms with Mexico over the next few months.

Tom Jones7h

The $640,000 Luce makes the average Ferrari look like a bargain

Put aside the shape; put aside the smoothing out of Ferrari’s iconic sharp edges; put aside, even, the calls from former Chairman and President Luca Cordero di Montezemolo to “take the Prancing Horse off.” On the grounds of price alone, Luce detractors might have a point.

By now, many of us will have read the criticisms of Ferrari’s first fully electric vehicle, as the Luce — which was unveiled to the world earlier this week and promptly saw the company’s shares crash out in New York and Milan — gets subtly shaded by competitors online and not-so-subtly shaded by basically everyone else.

What makes all of this worse for Ferrari is that, even by the luxury car maker’s notoriously high standards, they’ve slapped a pretty hefty price tag on the Luce, and the company’s CEO, Benedetto Vigna, has already been forced to defend the €550,000 ($640,000) price point, saying yesterday that it’s “fair to pay for innovation,” per Reuters.

While Ferrari’s cars have been getting more expensive of late, as recently as 2022, Ferrari’s average revenue per car sold was around $340,000. At nearly twice that price, this new electric model is obviously proving a little much (visually, conceptually, and financially) for many loyal and long-standing fans of the Prancing Horse to stomach.