Pengana trust secures exposure to US$190bn AI firm Databricks

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Pengana Capital’s AI Private Opportunities Trust (AIX) has invested nearly a tenth of its portfolio in the San Francisco-based company as it continues to build out its holdings.

Pengana’s AIX trust, which offers Australian investor access to privately-owned AI companies, has announced an investment in North American AI company Databricks.

It follows the firm’s stake in German defence-AI company Helsing earlier this month, bringing deployed capital to over a third of its portfolio — with positions now including Bytedance and Handshake. The trust debuted on the ASX on 2 July. 

AIX said it had also made an investment in “one of the world’s two leading LLM companies”, which it expects to identify publicly following the completion of the relevant processes. Leading privately owned large language model (LLM) companies include Anthropic and OpenAI, both of which are expected to list soon. 

With the acquisition, AIX has approximately 8 per cent of its portfolio invested in Databricks, an AI firm whose platform Pengana says is used by more than 70 per cent of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 20,000 organisations worldwide to manage their data and build AI applications.  

Databricks sells a platform that helps companies and public-sector agencies make sense of their data.  

Earlier this month, the San Francisco-based company raised US$5 billion at a US$190 billion valuation — joining a growing group of firms staying private for longer, which AIX is targeting for exposure. 

“Like many of these private AI market leaders, Databricks is off-limits to most Australian investors,” Pengana chief executive Russel Pillemer said. “AIX aims to fill this gap by providing Australian investors with access to the private AI economy, creating unique exposure to the current and future leaders in AI.” 

Pillemer said the company represents an “exciting position” for the trust, strengthening its exposure to the companies enabling the next phase of AI adoption.  

Pengana believes AI will create significant value beyond the foundation models themselves, with AIX’s mandate promising to provide exposure to a curated list of private companies across all four quadrants of the AI ecosystem: foundation models; picks and shovels; AI applications; and physical AI. 

“Databricks has become one of the world’s leading data and AI platforms, helping thousands of organisations build and deploy AI applications at scale,” Pillemer said. 

“[The company] represents exactly the type of business we are seeking to own on behalf of investors, combining strong market leadership, substantial revenue growth and a pivotal role in the global adoption of artificial intelligence.” 

Like other major US AI firms such as Anthropic, Databricks has also announced plans to expand operations in Australia, opening offices in Melbourne and Sydney. 

Though its private status has kept the company off-limits to many Australian investors, some local institutions have backed it for years, with the $337 billion Future Fund first investing in 2017.  

According to Australian Financial Review reporting, Macquarie Capital and several family offices are also among its backers. 

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IMPORTANT INFORMATION AND DISCLAIMER

Pengana Investment Management Limited ACN 063 081 612, AFSL 219462 (Pengana) is the issuer of this information and units in AI Private Opportunities Trust ARSN 697 001 184 (AIX).

This information is of a general nature only and has been prepared without taking into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Before making an investment decision in respect of AIX you should consider the PDS, TMD and ASX Announcements available at pengana.com/AIX and assess whether AIX is appropriate given your objectives, financial situation and needs.

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There are no guarantees that an active trading market with sufficient liquidity will develop or that such a secondary market will sustain a price representative of the NAV per AIX unit. In circumstances where AIX units are suspended from the ASX, unitholders may not be able to sell their AIX units via the ASX until trading recommences.