Snowflake Inc.
| File:Snowflake Logo.svg | |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| |
| Founded | July 23, 2012 |
| Founders |
|
| Headquarters | Bozeman, Montana, U.S. |
Key people |
|
| Services | Cloud data platform |
| Revenue | Increase Template:US$ (2025) |
| Decrease Template:US$ (2025) | |
| Decrease Template:US$ (2025) | |
| Total assets | Increase Template:US$ (2025) |
| Total equity | Decrease Template:US$ (2025) |
Number of employees | 7,834 (2025) |
| Website | {{URL|example.com|optional display text}}Lua error in Module:EditAtWikidata at line 29: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). |
Snowflake Inc. is a U.S.-based corporation specializing in cloud data storage solutions, with its headquarters located in Bozeman, Montana. The company offers a platform that facilitates data analytics and concurrent access to datasets with low latency across leading cloud infrastructures such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. As of November 2024, Snowflake supported 10,618 clients worldwide, including upwards of 800 enterprises listed on the Forbes Global 2000, handling approximately 4.2 billion queries each day.
History
Established in July 2012 in San Mateo, California by Benoît Dageville, Thierry Cruanes, and Marcin Żukowski—who brought expertise from Oracle and Vectorwise—Snowflake received early backing from Sutter Hill Ventures, with Mike Speiser serving as its inaugural CEO.
In June 2014, Bob Muglia, formerly affiliated with Microsoft, assumed the CEO role. The company publicly emerged from stealth status in October 2014 with a user base of 80 and officially launched its cloud data warehousing product by June 2015.
Snowflake expanded its global footprint by initially operating on AWS starting in 2014, followed by integration with Microsoft Azure in 2018 and Google Cloud Platform in 2019.
Frank Slootman joined as CEO in May 2019, bringing prior leadership experience from ServiceNow and steering the company toward accelerated growth.
The introduction of the Data Exchange platform in June 2019 marked Snowflake’s enhancement of enterprise data sharing capabilities.
In December 2020, Knoema was incorporated as a data provider within Snowflake’s Data Marketplace.
By May 2021, Snowflake reorganized into a distributed corporate structure and relocated its main executive office to Bozeman, Montana.
To bolster its position in data clean rooms for advertisers, Snowflake acquired a 5% ownership in OpenAP, an advanced TV advertising company, in October 2022.
In May 2023, Snowflake announced plans to acquire Neeva—a privacy-centric search startup—for $185 million, broadening its range of products and services.
On February 28, 2024, Frank Slootman stepped down as CEO; Sridhar Ramaswamy, cofounder of Neeva, succeeded him as chief executive officer, signifying an important change in leadership.
Products
Snowflake provides the Data Cloud, a unified cloud platform that integrates data warehousing, data lakes, data engineering, and data sharing within a single service. This platform runs on major public cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP), featuring a separation of compute and storage to enable scalable, on-demand analytics.
In 2020, Snowflake introduced Snowpark, a developer environment that allows the creation of data pipelines and business logic using programming languages like Java, Scala, and Python directly on the platform.
The 2021 launch of Unistore merged transactional and analytical processing capabilities, facilitating real-time application support on Snowflake’s infrastructure.
In 2023, Snowflake rolled out the Native App Framework, which empowers developers to create, distribute, and monetize secure applications within customers’ Snowflake environments.
Other offerings include Snowpipe, designed for continuous data ingestion, and the Snowflake Marketplace, which provides access to live, query-ready datasets for sharing and consumption.
In 2024, Snowflake debuted Cortex, a platform embedding generative AI functionalities such as large language models, vector search capabilities, and model deployment tools to enable AI-driven applications through SQL or Python interfaces.
Snowflake accommodates a wide range of workloads including machine learning, streaming analytics, business intelligence, and processing unstructured data. It supports integrations with popular analytics tools like Tableau, Power BI, and Sigma Computing.
2024 data breach
During 2024, several prominent Snowflake clients—including Ticketmaster, Advance Auto Parts, Santander Bank, Neiman Marcus, LendingTree, AT&T, Pure Storage, and Bausch Health—were victims of a significant data theft and extortion operation. This breach notably affected Snowflake’s market standing and raised serious questions about its cybersecurity defenses.
Authorities identified two suspects: Connor Riley Moucka (also known as Waifu), age 25 from Kitchener, Ontario, and John Erin Binns (alias IRDev). Moucka was apprehended on October 30, 2024, facing multiple charges including conspiracy, computer fraud and abuse, extortion, and aggravated identity theft in a Washington state court. This event underscored the necessity for stringent security measures in organizations managing extensive global operations and sensitive data assets.
Funding
Snowflake's capital raising began in 2012 with a $5 million Series A investment. This was followed by $26 million secured in October 2014. In June 2015, the company obtained $45 million to support its initial product launch. By April 2017, it had raised $100 million aimed at expanding its cloud data warehouse presence.
In January 2018, Snowflake reached unicorn status after securing $263 million at a valuation of $1.5 billion. Later that year, it completed a $450 million funding round led by Sequoia Capital that valued the company at $3.5 billion.
By February 2020, Snowflake had raised $479 million while serving approximately 3,400 active customers. On September 16, 2020, it went public with an IPO that raised $3.4 billion—one of the largest software IPOs ever—and achieved the largest first-day doubling in stock price history.
Acquisition
In June 2025, Snowflake completed the purchase of Crunchy Data, a provider specializing in cloud-based PostgreSQL services, for around $250 million. This acquisition strategically advances Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud platform and bolsters its capacity to handle enterprise workloads, especially within artificial intelligence and machine learning domains.