Petroc Taylor
Research expert covering global developments in the use of data
Snowflake is a U.S. technology firm offering cloud data services. Snowflake’s core product is a unified cloud data platform that enables customers to easily access, analyze, and share their data. Founded in 2012 and publicly launched in 2014, Snowflake has grown to become one of the world’s largest cloud vendors by revenue as of 2023. The company reported revenue of almost 2.1 billion U.S. dollars in the financial year ending January 31, 2023, up from 1.2 billion the previous year, though has posted consecutive net losses since going public in 2020. Snowflake’s workforce has grown rapidly in recent years, with its July 2023 headcount of 6,659 representing a yearly personnel increase of around a third.
Though many analysts tipped Snowflake for long-term financial success amid its high-profile IPO, the firm faces significant competition in an increasingly congested cloud market. Microsoft leads the market by revenue, with cloud revenue of 28.5 billion U.S. dollars during its fourth fiscal quarter of 2023, followed by competing tech giant Amazon. Rather than launch its own private cloud, Snowflake has opted for increased integration by making its service available on the three major public cloud services operated by big tech: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, thus maximizing its viability for organizations worldwide.
Snowflake seeks to tackle data silos
Snowflake describes its platform as powering what it terms the “data cloud”. The term refers to an ecosystem in which organizations store and access single, live copies of their data, and can seamlessly share this data with other organizations on the cloud. Snowflake pitches its platform as a solution to the use of “silos” in data storage, wherein organizations store data in standalone data warehouses which can be difficult to access and in which data is often needlessly replicated. The Snowflake platform is intended to offer all necessary tools and services to work within the data cloud, including analytics, governance, and cybersecurity tools, and thus reduces the need for supplementary database software.The Snowflake platform
Snowflake emphasizes flexibility and ease of use. The firm allows customers to access free and paid third-party data via a marketplace, as well as offer their own data for purchase. In addition, the firm offers the option of a usage-based payment model in which customers only pay for the storage and computing resources that they use. As of July 2023, 8,537 organizations used the Snowflake platform, 590 of which were listed on the Forbes Global 2000 index of the world’s largest companies.IPO and public cloud
Snowflake attracted significant attention in the run-up to its September 2020 IPO, with backing from the CRM giant Salesforce as well as billionaire investor Warren Buffet. Snowflake’s value at IPO was 33.2 billion U.S. dollars, ranking it among the highest-valued unicorn exits worldwide, while the firm’s share price had more than doubled to 254 U.S. dollars by the end of the first day of trading. In total, the Snowflake IPO raised 3.4 billion U.S. dollars.Though many analysts tipped Snowflake for long-term financial success amid its high-profile IPO, the firm faces significant competition in an increasingly congested cloud market. Microsoft leads the market by revenue, with cloud revenue of 28.5 billion U.S. dollars during its fourth fiscal quarter of 2023, followed by competing tech giant Amazon. Rather than launch its own private cloud, Snowflake has opted for increased integration by making its service available on the three major public cloud services operated by big tech: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud, thus maximizing its viability for organizations worldwide.
