Databricks strikes deal to buy Panther Labs in cybersecurity push

SAN FRANCISCO, June 16 : Databricks on Tuesday said it agreed to buy the startup Panther Labs, as the U.S. data analytics provider pushes deeper into the cybersecurity business.

The acquisition, Databricks' third in this area, furthers its aim to compete with security management incumbents like CrowdStrike and Cisco's Splunk. Databricks declined to comment on the deal terms.

Panther, valued at $1.4 billion after raising $120 million in Series B funding in 2021, gathers data sources and key ingredients for security in one place. That way, AI programs that act with limited human intervention, known as agents, can respond to a rising flood of threats in the AI age.

In an interview, Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi said AI had drastically shrunk how much time attackers need to exploit software vulnerabilities, and old ways of managing security information and alerts were "dead."

"If they're going to attack you with agents, you have to defend with agents," Ghodsi told Reuters, during the company's Data + AI Summit in San Francisco this week. "You have to fight fire with fire."