The firm offers a cloud-based data storage and analytics service, generally termed "data-as-a-service".[4][5] It allows corporate users to store and analyze data using cloud-based hardware and software. The Snowflake service's main features are separation of storage and compute, on-the-fly scalable compute, data sharing, data cloning, and support for third-party tools.[6] It has run on Amazon Web Services since 2014,[2]onMicrosoft Azure since 2018[7] and on the Google Cloud Platform since 2019.[8][9] The company was ranked first on the Forbes Cloud 100 in 2019.[10] The company's initial public offering raised $3.4 billion in September 2020, one of the largest software IPOs in history.[11]
Snowflake Inc. was founded in July 2012 in San Mateo, California by three data warehousing experts: Benoît Dageville, Thierry Cruanes and Marcin Żukowski. Dageville and Cruanes previously worked as data architects at Oracle Corporation; Żukowski was a co-founder of the Dutch start-up Vectorwise. The company's first CEO was Mike Speiser, a venture capitalist at Sutter Hill Ventures.[12]
In June 2014, the company appointed former Microsoft executive Bob Muglia as CEO. In October 2014, it raised $26 million and came out of stealth mode, being used by 80 organizations.[13] In June 2015, the company raised an additional $45 million and launched its first product, its cloud data warehouse, to the public.[14][15][16] It raised another $100 million in April 2017.[17][18] In January 2018, the company announced a $263 million financing round at a $1.5 billion valuation, making it a unicorn.[19] In October 2018, it raised another $450 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital, raising its valuation to $3.5 billion.[4][20]
In May 2019, Frank Slootman, the retired former CEO of ServiceNow, joined Snowflake as its CEO and Michael Scarpelli, the former CFO of ServiceNow joined the company as CFO.[8] In June 2019, the company launched Snowflake Data Exchange.[21] In September 2019, it was ranked first on LinkedIn's 2019 U.S. list of Top Startups.[22]
On February 7, 2020, the company raised another $479 million. At that time, it had 3,400 active customers.[23] On September 16, 2020, Snowflake became a public company via an initial public offering (IPO) raising $3.4 billion, one of the largest software IPOs and the largest to double on its first day of trading.[11][24][25][26][27]
On May 26, 2021, the company announced that it would become headquarterless,[28] with a principal executive office located in Bozeman, Montana.[29]
On March 2, 2022, the company acquired Streamlit for $800 million. [30] Then on October 17, 2022, the company announced an investment in advanced TV advertising firm OpenAP.[31]
Snowflake announced it would acquire privacy-focused search startup Neeva for $185 million in May 2023.[32][33]
On October 23, 2023, Snowflake acquired a start-up named Ponder to expand its Python capabilities for enterprises.[34]
On February 28, 2024, Snowflake announced that Slootman was retiring and Sridhar Ramaswamy would be replacing him as CEO.[33]
In 2024, a massive hack of Snowflake customers resulted in data breaches of Ticketmaster,[35]Advance Auto Parts (over 2.3 million records affected),[36]Santander Bank, LendingTree, AT&T (call logs and cell site locations from over 100 million mobile customers),[37] and others.[38] Lists of customer logins were available in hacking forums; those without multi-factor authentication were affected.[39][40] In an investigation by Mandiant it was confirmed that credentials for Snowflake customer accounts were obtained by an info-stealing malware tracked as Frostbite, that affected non-Snowflake owned systems.[41]
Mandiant linked the attack to the UNC5537 group, and believe the breach began on April 14, 2024.[42]
US$2.806 billion (2024)
US$−1.09 billion (2024)
