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In many cases, startups or emerging companies scale their technology so quickly that they become the focus of attention of other high net worth companies. These find themselves with unique opportunities, offering considerable sums of investment, or in the alternative case, they will seek to acquire the entire company that is under the spotlight.
It has recently come to light that Databricks, a data analytics platform, will buy the $1 billion startup Neon. It is an open source alternative to AWS Aurora Postgre. With the acquisition of the startup, it is expected that Neon's technology will be used to complement data intelligence services with relational database management system that lack servers, which will allow the implementation of AI agents.
AI agents are becoming an increasingly popular technology used by companies around the world. It is focused on automating processes that humans, until today, were responsible for performing. In addition, multitasking is possible with the availability of several AI agents, which allows for efficiency gains. In addition, these agents can perceive their environment, which means they can decide what kind of actions to take to accomplish their task, although human control is still necessary.
Neon is a cloud database platform with an attractive feature for developers; the ability to clone databases and preview the modifications made before entering the production phase. The platform also allows automatic scaling with respect to processor, memory, and storage, depending on the required usage. In addition, it supports testing and development through isolated database instances.
Obtained from Databricks official site
Databricks maintains that the platform's capabilities are ideal for performing workloads under the execution of AI agents, which stand out for their processing speed in contrast to the operating capacity of a human developer. If anything, it must be said that the supervision of these agents, at least at present, must be done with great care, since they can make mistakes.
According to Databricks co-founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi, there is a marked transformation of the functions of a database thanks to native agent-based AI technologies. On the other hand, he highlights the value of Neon, a company characterized by offering cutting-edge technology that requires fewer and fewer human personnel to build databases. Most of the platform's databases are created through code, and with the incorporation of the startup to Databricks, it is expected that developers will have a serverless Postgre that is on par with the way these agents work.
So far Neon has managed to raise $129.6 million, with key investors including M12, Microsoft venture capital, General Catalyst, Menlo Ventures, and Notable Capital. As for Databricks, it maintains a cumulative $19 billion in funding. Earlier this year, the company had closed a $15.3 billion deal in a funding round, bringing it to an incredible $62 billion valuation.
It plans to use these funds to invest in technology that will strengthen its position in the market by leading as a service for developing, testing and deploying AI models and agents. It is safe to say that the company is betting everything on the AI boom, considering the acquisition of Tabular, a data management company, for close to $2 billion. Also for the acquisition, in 2023, of the open source platform focused on training LLMs and AI tools, for an estimated $1.3 billion.
Emerging companies are becoming increasingly sophisticated in relation to the technology they contribute, improving the capabilities and optimization of systems that can implement scalable solutions. For this and other reasons, large companies see a situation that should not be missed, especially now that we are facing the ideal moment; the most opportune. AI will undoubtedly make a difference in the future.
- Main image edited in Canva.
- Information has been consulted in: techcrunch.com.
- Translated to English with DeepL.