Databricks acquires Panther Labs to defend against AI-powered cyberattacks with agentic security

Databricks Makes Strategic Move Into AI Cybersecurity

Databricks has announced its acquisition of Panther Labs, a cybersecurity startup specializing in AI-powered threat detection, though financial terms remain undisclosed 1

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. Panther Labs was last valued at $1.4 billion after raising $120 million in a 2021 Series B round backed by Snowflake Ventures and Coatue 1

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. This Databricks acquisition represents the company's third cybersecurity deal since the start of the year, signaling an aggressive push into a market dominated by established players like Splunk and CrowdStrike 1

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Fighting Agentic Attacks With Agentic Defense

The acquisition comes as AI cybersecurity threats accelerate at unprecedented speed. Ali Ghodsi, Databricks chief executive, explained the stark reality facing organizations: AI has dramatically reduced the time attackers need to identify and exploit software vulnerabilities across cloud and SaaS systems 1

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. "If they're going to attack you with agents, you have to defend with agents," Ghodsi told Reuters, declaring that traditional security alert management is "dead" 1

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. Panther Labs addresses this challenge by consolidating security data into a unified platform where AI agents can automatically triage alerts and investigate threats without constant human intervention . The platform already defends AI-native environments and counts Anthropic among its customers 1

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Building the Security Lakehouse to Challenge Legacy SIEM Tools

Databricks is positioning the combined technology as a security lakehouse, directly targeting legacy SIEM tools that companies like Splunk have sold for years 1

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. The company launched Lakewatch in March 2025, its own AI-powered security product that enables enterprises to collect and analyze cybersecurity logs from multiple sources 2

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. Panther's technology will enhance these breach detection capabilities by speeding up tasks such as developing remediation plans and automating security operations center workflows 2

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How Panther Labs Transforms Cyberattack Detection

Panther Labs tackles a critical challenge in cyberattack detection: organizations often have incomplete breach data because collecting comprehensive telemetry is prohibitively expensive 2

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. The platform includes filters that remove noise from telemetry streams, reducing costs while enabling collection of more high-value breach data 2

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. Panther scans organized data for threats using customer-provided detections—code snippets designed to spot specific malicious activities 2

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. An AI tool enables customers to create these detections using natural language prompts, while another AI module identifies root causes of false positives and suggests code changes 2

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. The platform implements detections in Python and supports PantherFlow, a programming syntax for querying cybersecurity logs 2

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Third Security Acquisition Signals Databricks' Vertical Strategy

This deal follows Databricks' acquisition of Antimatter, a data encryption specialist focused on data protection and secure governance for AI agents, and SiftD.ai, which built tools for automating breach remediation tasks and agentic AI-human collaboration 2

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. The pattern reveals Databricks is systematically buying its way into one vertical after another, with AI-driven security as the latest focus 1

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. There's history between the companies: Ghodsi met Panther founder Jack Naglieri in 2021, took him to dinner, and pitched an acquisition, but Naglieri declined to keep building 1

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. "That was a good idea for him," Ghodsi acknowledged, "because his valuation has been going up since then" 1

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. Five years later, with Databricks' own valuation soaring to $134 billion and an IPO in view, the company finally secured the deal 1

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What This Means for the Cybersecurity Landscape

Databricks is reportedly considering a new funding round within the next month that could push its valuation to between $165 billion and $175 billion 3

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. Despite operating for 13 years, the company has repeatedly delayed its IPO, opting instead for private funding rounds and secondary share sales 3

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. Ghodsi told investors the company remains on track for an IPO, potentially as early as next year 3

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. The Panther Labs deal remains subject to regulatory clearance 1

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. As AI agents proliferate inside enterprises, the rush to secure these environments intensifies, positioning Databricks to compete directly with established cybersecurity vendors in a market where speed and automation now determine survival.