Databricks Commits $250 mn to Fuel Data and AI Innovation in India

Databricks has announced a significant $250 million investment in India over the next three years, underscoring the country’s growing role in the global AI ecosystem.

The San Francisco-based startup plans to expand its workforce by more than 50%, targeting a headcount of over 750 employees in India by the end of the fiscal year.

Announced during its flagship Data Intelligence Day event in Mumbai, the investment will fund large-scale talent development, go-to-market initiatives, and a new research and development hub in Bengaluru.

“India is emerging as a global AI talent hub,” said Rochana Golani, VP of Learning & Enablement at Databricks. She noted that Accenture has already partnered with the company to launch a Databricks training program at its Bengaluru Innovation Hub.

Databricks’ new 105,000-square-foot R&D facility at Bagmane Capital Park will add over 100 engineers this year, reinforcing its commitment to the region. The company counts HDFC Bank, Swiggy, Zepto, and others among its growing customer base in India.

Earlier this year, the company secured over $15 billion in funding through a mix of equity and debt, attracting investments from major players such as Meta Platforms Inc. (Facebook's parent company), various global lenders, and sovereign wealth funds from Singapore and Qatar.

Recently, the startup acquired Fennel AI Inc., a startup focused on real-time feature engineering, for an undisclosed sum. The move is aimed at enhancing Databricks’ Data Intelligence Platform by enabling more advanced, real-time data processing capabilities.

Fennel has built a modern, incremental compute engine designed to optimise data pipelines across batch, streaming, and real-time sources. This architecture ensures fresher and more efficient data, which is critical for training high-performance AI models.