Databricks bought two startups to support its new AI security solutions

It’s an overflowing war chest from his $5 billion in funding that closed last month (not to mention billions of dollars), Databricks is getting it.

The company, best known for its cloud-based data analytics platform, he announced Tuesday that it is launching a new security tool called Lakewatch. Lakewatch takes Databricks’ ability to store large amounts of data and performs advanced Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) functions, such as threat detection and investigation. Only it does so with the help of AI assistants powered by Anthropic’s Claude.

Databricks bought two startups to support this new tool: Antimatter, in a hitherto undisclosed deal that closed last year, and SiftD.ai, in a deal that flew together a few weeks ago and closed on Monday, the company told TechCrunch.

Terms were not disclosed for either agreement. Antimatter, founded by security researcher Andrew Krioukov, has raised $12 million led by New Enterprise Associates in 2022, according to PitchBook estimates. If little SiftD.ai raised money, PitchBook didn’t know.

SiftD.ai was very young, he was nothing launched its business in November: reference book (e.g. a Jupiter notebook) is intended to be a tool for people and assistants to work together. The Databricks team knows co-founder Steve Zhang from many years as a senior scientist at Splunk (through 2021). He created the Search Language while there. (His LinkedIn He also says that he was the CTO of Astronomer, about the Coldplay CEO scandalbut he left there in 2023 before establishing SiftD.)

All of these discoveries were small startups – only a handful of SiftD cases and less than 50 for Antimatter, according to LinkedIn. SiftD looks like a rental. With Antimatter, Databricks may have also acquired an IP. Krioukov demonstrated Antimatter technology on stage 2024 at RSA’s Innovation Sandbox Contest. Antimatter was working on a “data control plane” tool that would allow businesses to deploy agents securely, while protecting sensitive data.

Although Databricks declined to say how many employees it has acquired, it confirmed that the founding employees have joined the company. Krioukov, who has been at Databricks for months now, leads the Lakewatch team.

We asked Databricks if it would continue to buy startups and a spokesperson said, yes, it will only release its own audio. “We’re always looking at what’s next – our goal is to stay ahead of the market and close gaps in what our customers need,” he said.