Celebrating the Winners of the 2026 Built-On Databricks Startup Challenge

We are excited to announce the winners of the 2026 Built-On Databricks Startup Challenge! The competition activated a global group of early-stage startups that build innovative B2B applications on top of the Databricks platform. This year’s winners span industries and solutions; we’re excited to feature agentic solutions across threat intelligence, web search and AI applications, retail and merchandising, and more.

Our elite judging panel selected three finalists from a highly competitive field. Congratulations to our three winners and our three Honorable Mentions! Read more below.

These finalists presented their solutions live at the 2026 Data + AI Summit. Watch the full session here.

🏆 Grand Prize Winner: VisionHeight

VisionHeight has been named the Grand Prize Winner of the Built-On Databricks Startup Challenge!

VisionHeight is the Agentic Threat Intelligence platform that closes a critical blind spot for defenders. The company was founded on simple observation: adversaries build attack infrastructure weeks before campaigns launch. Too often, security teams watch their own network while AI-driven adversaries move at machine speed on the other side of the internet, where campaigns are built and staged, outside of view.

Today, security teams discover these threats too late and find themselves reacting. VisionHeight changes that, by mapping adversary infrastructure across the entire Internet while it’s being constructed - delivering preemptive cybersecurity for the first time. And, it’s built end-to-end on Databricks!

🥈 Second Place: Linkup

Linkup is the production-grade Web Search API for AI, connecting AI applications (agents, chatbots, data pipelines) to fresh, factual, sourced web data. Linkup owns and maintains its proprietary web index, crawling and indexing the open web independently at the fact level, not the page level.

Linkup’s API delivers results in ~2s with state-of-the-art accuracy. Linkup is GDPR-native, SOC2 Type II certified, and trusted by enterprise clients globally.

🥉 Third Place: Intelo

Intelo is the agentic workforce for retail merchandising & planning - everything from financial planning to markdowns operate together as one connected ecosystem. Retailers use Intelo to unify complex merchandising processes into a single intelligence layer.

The platform deploys five cohesive AI Agent Teams (Merchant Analytics, Merchandise Financial Planning, Assortment Planning, In-Season Management, and Pricing & Promotion) to deliver maximum value. Built for premium and specialty retail, Intelo integrates with existing ERP, POS, and planning systems, executing collaboratively with retail merchandising and planning teams.

Honorable Mentions

We are also recognizing several other startups that stood out during the competition:

• Clarecast: an AI-native predictive intelligence platform built on Databricks, with an initial wedge in headcount forecasting.
• Gemini Sports: a mobile-first, AI-powered squad planning platform built for professional football clubs. It centralizes scout reports, performance analytics, injury history, contract data, and player comparisons into a single command center — accessible anywhere, on any device.
• LakeFusion: an AI-native data foundation platform built on Databricks, combining Master Data Management (MDM), Product Information Management (PIM), and LakeGraph, the company's ontology and relationship intelligence layer, into a single platform.

The Road to Victory

Our judging panel evaluated the applicants based on a rigorous set of criteria, including market potential, founding team caliber, and innovative use of Databricks. Judges for the Challenge included Stephen Orban (SVP Product Ecosystem & Partnerships, Databricks), Shanku Niyogi (VP Product, Databricks), Sabrina Wu (Partner, Madrona) and Madison Faulkner (Partner, NEA). The winners were announced at a sold-out breakout session at the Data + AI Summit in San Francisco on June 16th.

Looking Ahead

The Built-On Databricks Startup Challenge is more than a competition; it’s a launchpad for the future AI-driven applications. Don’t miss the opportunity to join the Databricks for Startups program.

We launched an exciting new Databricks Startup Program offer at Data+ AI Summit, which offers qualifying startups up to $200,000 in credits across both Databricks and Neon. This represents a new, consolidated program that gives early-stage founders the app backend, data, and AI stack they need to go from idea to product market fit. Apply now here!