Snowflake Inc. is an American cloud-based data storage company. Headquartered in Bozeman, Montana, it operates a platform that allows for data analysis and simultaneous access of data sets with minimal latency.[1] It operates on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. As of November 2024, the company had 10,618 customers, including 800+ members of the Forbes Global 2000, and processed 4.2 billion daily queries across its platform.[1]
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| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| |
| Founded | July 23, 2012 |
| Founders |
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| Headquarters | Bozeman, Montana, U.S. |
Key people |
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| Services | Cloud Data Platform |
| Revenue |  US$2.806 billion (2024) |
 US$−1.09 billion (2024) | |
| US$−836 million (2024) | |
| Total assets | US$8.223 billion (2024) |
| Total equity | US$5.180 billion (2024) |
Number of employees | 7,004 (2024) |
| Website | www |
| Footnotes / references Financials as of January 31, 2024[update].[1] | |
History
editSnowflake Inc. was founded in July 2012 in San Mateo, California, by Benoît Dageville, Thierry Cruanes and Marcin Żukowski. Dageville and Cruanes previously worked as data architects at Oracle Corporation; Żukowski was a co-founder of Vectorwise. Mike Speiser, a venture capitalist at Sutter Hill Ventures, which provided early funding to the company, was the company's first CEO.[2]
In June 2014, Bob Muglia, formerly of Microsoft, was named CEO. In October 2014, Snowflake came out of stealth mode; at that time it was used by 80 organizations.[3][4]
Snowflake has run on Amazon Web Services since 2014,[5][6] on Microsoft Azure since 2018,[7] and on the Google Cloud Platform since 2019.[8][9]
In June 2015, Snowflake launched its first product, its cloud data warehouse.[10]
In May 2019, Frank Slootman, formerly CEO of ServiceNow, joined Snowflake as its CEO.[8]
In June 2019, the company launched Snowflake Data Exchange.[11]
In December 2020, the company added Knoema as a data provider in the Snowflake Data Marketplace.[12]
In May 2021, the company became a distributed company, with a principal executive office in Bozeman, Montana.[13]
In October 2022, the company acquired a 5% stake in advanced TV advertising firm OpenAP.[14]
On February 28, 2024, Frank Slootman retired as CEO and was replaced by Sridhar Ramaswamy.[15]
2024 data breach
editIn 2024, per an investigation by Mandiant, login credentials for Snowflake customer accounts that did not have multi-factor authentication were obtained by an infostealer linked to the UNC5537 threat actor group.[16][17][18][19] Data breaches affected Ticketmaster,[20] Advance Auto Parts,[21] Santander Bank, LendingTree, AT&T,[22] and Bausch Health.[23] One Connor Riley Moucka, 25, (alias Waifu of the hacking group "The Comm"), was arrested by Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, police (at the request of the U.S.) on October 30, 2024; a Washington state court has issued an indictment on charges of conspiracy, computer fraud and abuse, extortion, and aggravated identity theft. [24][25][26]
Funding
editIn 2012, Snowflake raised $5 million in a Series A round. In October 2014, it raised $26 million.[3]
In June 2015, the company raised $45 million.[27][10][28] It raised $100 million in April 2017.[29][30]
In January 2018, the company raised $263 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, making it a unicorn.[31]
In October 2018, Snowflake raised $450 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital, at a $3.5 billion valuation.[3][32]
On February 7, 2020, the company raised $479 million. At that time, it had 3,400 active customers.[33]
On September 16, 2020, Snowflake became a public company via an initial public offering, raising $3.4 billion in one of the largest software IPOs and the largest to double on its first day of trading.[34][35][36][37][38]
Acquisitions
edit| # | Date | Company | Price | Notes | Ref(s). |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | July 2020 | CryptoNumerics | Undisclosed | Privacy-protected datasets | [39] |
| 2 | March 2022 | Streamlit | $800 million | Data-based apps | [40] |
| 3 | September 2022 | Applica | Undisclosed | AI platform for document understanding | [41] |
| 4 | January 2023 | Mist AI | Undisclosed | Time series forecasting company | [42] |
| 5 | February 2023 | LeapYear | Undisclosed | Data clean room abilities | [43] |
| 6 | May 2023 | Neeva | $185 million | Privacy-focused search startup | [44][15] |
| 7 | October 2023 | Ponder | Undisclosed | Python capabilities | [45] |
| 8 | May 2024 | TruEra | Undisclosed | AI Observability Platform | [46] |
References
edit- ^ a b c "US SEC: Form 10-K Snowflake, Inc". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. March 26, 2024.
- ^ Anders, George (September 4, 2019). "You're never too old to excel: How Snowflake thrives with 'dinosaur' cofounders and a 60-year-old CEO". LinkedIn.
- ^ a b c Dignan, Larry (October 22, 2018). "Snowflake raises $450 million in another VC round, valued at $3.5 billion". ZDNet.
- ^ Bass, Dina (October 21, 2014). "Snowflake Takes Aim at Amazon, Hadoop With New Data Service". Bloomberg News.
- ^ Handy, Alex (October 23, 2014). "Snowflake offers cloud data warehouse as a service, cheaply". SD Times.
- ^ Wingfield, Nick (October 21, 2014). "Longtime Microsoft Executive Opens Cloud Database Start-Up". The New York Times.
- ^ Brust, Andrew (July 12, 2018). "Snowflake's cloud data warehouse comes to Microsoft Azure". ZDNet.
- ^ a b Taulli, Tom (June 5, 2019). "Snowflake: The AI Force Multiplier". Forbes.
- ^ Ichhpurani, Kevin (June 4, 2019). "Announcing Snowflake on Google Cloud Platform". Google Cloud Platform (Press release).
- ^ a b Hesseldahl, Arik (June 23, 2015). "Big Data Startup Snowflake Raises $45 Million, Launches First Product". Vox Media.
- ^ "Snowflake Announces Data Exchange to Break Down Data Barriers" (Press release). PR Newswire. June 4, 2019.
- ^ Gogineni, Manasa (December 21, 2020). "Knoema announces acquisition by Eldridge and partnership with Snowflake". VentureBeat.
- ^ Levy, Ari (May 26, 2021). "Snowflake relocates executive office from California to Bozeman, Montana, as company goes distributed". CNBC.
- ^ Sharma, Shubham (October 17, 2022). "Snowflake acquires stake in OpenAP to set up data clean room for advertisers". VentureBeat.
- ^ a b Vanian, Jonathan (February 28, 2024). "Snowflake says Frank Slootman is retiring as CEO; stock plunges 20%". CNBC.
- ^ "The Snowflake Attack May Be Turning Into One of the Largest Data Breaches Ever". WIRED. June 6, 2024.
- ^ Whittaker, Zach (June 5, 2024). "Hundreds of Snowflake customer passwords found online are linked to info-stealing malware". TechCrunch.
- ^ Gatlan, Sergiu (June 5, 2024). "Advance Auto Parts stolen data for sale after Snowflake attack". Bleeping Computer.
- ^ Culafi, Alexander (June 10, 2024). "Mandiant: 'Exposed credentials' led to Snowflake attacks". TechTarget.
- ^ Whittaker, Zack (May 31, 2024). "Live Nation confirms Ticketmaster was hacked, says personal information stolen in data breach". TechCrunch.
- ^ Grieg, Jonathan (July 11, 2024). "Advance Auto Parts says more than 2 million impacted by data breach". Recorded Future.
- ^ Toulas, Bill (July 12, 2024). "Massive AT&T data breach exposes call logs of 109 million customers". BleepingComputer.
- ^ Cox, Joseph (July 30, 2024). "Hacker Breaches Pharma Giant Bausch Health, Wants to Extort DEA". 404 Media.
- ^ Pender, Terry (November 29, 2024). "Accused Kitchener hacker unmasked after threatening woman online". The Record.
- ^ "US indicts Snowflake hackers who extorted $2.5 million from 3 victims". BleepingComputer.
- ^ "DocumentCloud". www.documentcloud.org.
- ^ Vanian, Jonathan (June 23, 2015). "This big data startup is as unique as a snowflake". Fortune.
- ^ Brust, Andrew (June 26, 2015). "Cloud data warehouse race heats up". ZDNet.
- ^ Dignan, Larry (April 5, 2017). "Snowflake Computing raises $100 million to expand cloud data warehouse footprint". ZDNet.
- ^ Magistretti, Bérénice; Novet, Jordan (April 5, 2017). "Cloud data warehouse startup Snowflake raises $100 million led by Iconiq". VentureBeat.
- ^ Miller, Ron (January 25, 2018). "Snowflake lands massive $263 million investment on unicorn valuation". TechCrunch.
- ^ Krazit, Tom (October 11, 2018). "With huge new $450M funding round, Snowflake Computing has now raised almost $1 billion". GeekWire.
- ^ Miller, Ron (February 9, 2020). "After $479M round on $12.4B valuation, Snowflake CEO says IPO is next step". TechCrunch.
- ^ Driebusch, Corrie (September 16, 2020). "Snowflake's Stock Price Soars in IPO". The Wall Street Journal.
- ^ Bary, Emily (September 16, 2020). "Snowflake IPO surge makes it the priciest tech stock by a mile". MarketWatch.
- ^ Zara, Christopher (September 16, 2020). "Snowflake, JFrog IPO: Software stocks soar in market debut". Fast Company.
- ^ Pressman, Aaron (September 16, 2020). "Snowflake CEO: Doubling of stock price after IPO reflects 'frothy' market". Fortune.
- ^ La Monica, Paul R. (September 16, 2020). "Snowflake Shares More than Double. It's the Biggest Software IPO Ever". CNN.
- ^ "CryptoNumerics in its acquisition by Snowflake". Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt. July 20, 2020.
- ^ Miller, Ron (March 2, 2022). "Snowflake acquires Streamlit for $800M to help customers build data-based apps". TechCrunch.
- ^ Sharma, Shubham (June 27, 2023). "Snowflake launches LLM-driven Document AI and more at annual conference". VentureBeat.
- ^ Sharma, Shubham (January 4, 2023). "Snowflake acquires Myst, looks to build time-series forecasting capabilities". VentureBeat.
- ^ Ghoshal, Anirban (January 4, 2023). "Snowflake to acquire LeapYear to boost data clean room abilities". InfoWorld.
- ^ Palmer, Annie (May 24, 2023). "Snowflake shares plunge 12% on guidance miss, acquisition of search startup Neeva". CNBC.
- ^ Sharma, Shubham (October 23, 2023). "Snowflake to acquire Ponder, expanding its Python capabilities for enterprises". VentureBeat.
- ^ Attariyan, Mona (May 22, 2024). "Snowflake Announces Agreement to Acquire TruEra AI Observability Platform to Bring LLM and ML Observability to the AI Data Cloud". Snowflake Blog.
External links
edit
- Official website
- Business data for Snowflake Inc.: