Open source data analytics platform Databricks has raised a $400 million Series F, bringing its total funding to just under $900 million. The deal values Databricks at $6.2 billion, an astonishing 30x its $200 million revenue run rate. By comparison, Salesforce paid less than 20x for Mulesoft. Yes, there’s a big world of data management software outside of CDPs.
As more advertisers buy media for themselves, media companies are rushing to provide tools to help. Streaming video company Roku just bought dataxu, a Demand Side Platform used to manage digital ad campaigns. Price was $150 million.
Like other martech outsiders, the big ad holding companies have bought customer data expertise: see Merkle/Dentsu, Acxiom/IPG, and Epsilon/Publicis. WPP’s Wunderman Thompson has plenty of customer data experience – the late Lester Wunderman coined the term “direct marketing” in 1967 – but they still aren’t building their own systems. Instead, they’ve just announced a deal to use Tealium’s AudienceStream CDP within their Customer Cloud platform.
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the U.S. if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell its holdings within a year. The bill now goes to the President Biden, who has said he will sign it. Court challenges are likely to follow.