ClickHouse hits $250M ARR as it eyes public market debut

Database provider ClickHouse has reached $250 million in annualized revenue run rate, which is a forward-looking revenue estimate. According to Yury Izrailevsky, the company’s co-founder and president of product and technology, this milestone, combined with its growth trajectory, positions the company for a potential initial public offering (IPO) within the next few years. Izrailevsky expects the revenue figure to reach high-nine digits by the end of the year. The company joins a growing list of tech startups signaling plans to go public as the IPO window is expected to be opened by SpaceX’s June debut.

In January, ClickHouse was valued at $15 billion following a $400 million Series D funding round—a late-stage venture capital financing round—led by Dragoneer Investment Group. This valuation represents a multiple of over 60x annualized revenue.

To prepare for public markets, the company hired Jimmy Sexton as chief financial officer. Sexton previously ran investor relations at Snowflake, which is a competitor to ClickHouse. Bringing on a chief financial officer is often viewed as a signal that a company is preparing for public markets. Additionally, ClickHouse continues an acquisition strategy, having already acquired six startups. These acquisitions include Langfuse, a startup that helps developers track and evaluate artificial intelligence agent performance. Izrailevsky indicated that ClickHouse plans to remain acquisitive, looking to acquire young startups showing promising technology, typically open source, that complement its core product suite.

The technology behind ClickHouse was originally developed inside Yandex 17 years ago, but spun out as an independent startup in 2021. Today, the database serves over 4,000 customers, including Anthropic, Meta, Capital One, and Decagon. The startup’s open source database is designed to process datasets for artificial intelligence agents. ClickHouse generates revenue by selling managed cloud services. Izrailevsky claimed that this commercial offering ultimately costs clients less than self-managing the open source version. It “is something that’s a little counterintuitive, but it also has been a big tailwind for us,” according to Yury Izrailevsky, co-founder and president of product and technology.

Why it matters

ClickHouse’s revenue growth and $15 billion valuation position the company for a potential IPO, joining other tech startups signaling public market debuts. The broader IPO window is expected to be opened by SpaceX’s June debut, followed by anticipated listings from OpenAI and Anthropic.