Databricks secures strategic investment from In-Q-Tel

Databricks, the company behind Apache Spark, announced on June 21 a strategic partnership agreement with and investment from In-Q-Tel, Inc. (IQT). IQT is the investment organization that identifies innovative technologies to support the mission of the U.S. Intelligence Community. Through this strategic partnership, Databricks will extend Apache Spark’s position as the leading processing engine built for speed, ease of use, and sophisticated analytics by delivering a cloud-based Spark platform that supports the operational requirements of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

Databricks is focused on the singular mission of making big data simple. The Databricks platform is a fully managed development and production system for advanced analytics powered by Spark. It empowers individuals and organizations to seamlessly transition from data ingest through exploration to production. Enterprises utilize Databricks to achieve a wide variety of objectives, including integrating disparate data silos, synthesizing actionable insights in real-time, and deploying advanced analytics solutions.

“Enterprises today know there is untapped value in their data, especially within the intelligence community, but selecting the tools to unlock that value is often a complex process. Databricks, powered by Apache Spark, is built for developers, data scientists, data engineers and other IT professionals to get up and running very quickly via one end-to-end platform,” said Ion Stoica, executive chairman at Databricks. “This investment by IQT further validates Databricks’ mission and reflects the need for big data simplicity and accessibility that we’re seeing among several industries, including federal.”

“A partnership with Databricks continues IQT’s tradition of working with world-class analytics companies,” said Dan Gwak, partner, IQT Investments. “We are proud to partner with Databricks to advance the intelligence mission.”