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Danel Dayan
Principal at Battery Ventures
Danel Dayan is a Principal at Battery Ventures, a global technology-focused investment firm based in Menlo Park, California. He joined Battery Ventures in March 2019 and has since been instrumental in leading investments in enterprise infrastructure software, particularly in areas such as cloud computing, cybersecurity, data analytics, and machine learning.12
Professional Background
Before his role at Battery Ventures, Dayan worked at Google in corporate development, where he led over 20 acquisitions and strategic investments worth more than $2 billion. His previous experience also includes positions in investment banking at Deutsche Bank and PwC, focusing on technology and financial advisory services.124
Education
Dayan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting, Finance, and Entrepreneurship from Santa Clara University, where he graduated summa cum laude. He also completed the International Baccalaureate program at the International School Manila.123
Investment Focus
At Battery Ventures, Dayan focuses on early-stage and growth-equity investments, actively participating in various sectors including cloud infrastructure, big data, security, and next-generation enterprise applications. His investment portfolio includes notable companies like Postman, Harness, and Matillion, among others. He has also been involved in several successful exits, including Confluent and JFrog, which are publicly traded.123
Dayan's contributions to the firm and the venture capital landscape have been recognized through his recent promotion to Principal, reflecting his significant impact on the firm's investment strategy and portfolio management.24
Highlights
Databricks disclosed that they are expecting to cross $2.4B in revenue run-rate growing ~65% Y/Y by H1’25 (Jan FYE). This was alongside top-tier metrics, including 80%+ GMs, 140%+ NDR, and a multi-product story where ~50% of customers use 6+ products (incl. their Data Warehouse product which generated $400M in revenue up 4.0x Y/Y).
Given their accelerated growth, Databricks is among the few scaled software companies, alongside hyperscalers, capitalizing on the AI boom. Equally noteworthy is their market share gain against competitors. Considering their growth trajectory, we explored various scenarios to determine when Databricks will surpass Snowflake in scale. The question is not if, but when, and we believe it is sooner than most anticipate.
Cloud earnings showed we’re not out of the woods yet but demand & optimizations have stabilized; new “AI” workloads are driving incremental growth.
Plug: Battery Ventures #OpenCloud conference is in 2 weeks w/ 150+ with founders and CEOs where we'll talk about this + more. cc: Dharmesh Thakker
The Big 3 (Oracle to be added next Q) are generating $193B growing 19% with estimates showing accelerating growth next Q on a path to $200B and 20% growth! and despite two quarters of flat growth, Cloud Vendors are investing ahead of the curve with Capex growth outpacing net new ARR growth - driven by AI infrastructure investments. We're entering a new era of growth.
Full deck for download here: https://lnkd.in/gBrymNWP
