What is Snowflake?
Cloud data and AI platform for warehousing, data engineering, sharing, applications, and governed enterprise AI.
- Category
- Data cloud and AI data platform
- Headquarters
- Bozeman, MT / San Mateo, CA operating roots
- Founded
- 2012
- Employees
- 8,000+ reported
- Total funding
- ~$1.4B private funding before IPO
- Status
- NYSE: SNOW public company
What is Snowflake?
Snowflake is a public Data Cloud company that sells a consumption-based platform for data warehousing, engineering, sharing, applications, and AI workloads. In Q3 fiscal 2026 it reported $1.16 billion of product revenue, 688 customers with more than $1 million in trailing-twelve-month product revenue, and 766 Forbes Global 2000 customers.
Snowflake separates compute and storage in a managed cloud data platform delivered across major clouds. Customers use it for analytics, data engineering, data sharing, application development, governance, and increasingly AI through Cortex, Snowpark, Iceberg, and marketplace capabilities.
The company went public in 2020 after raising about $1.4 billion privately and became one of the largest software IPOs. Current public performance is driven by product revenue, net revenue retention, remaining performance obligations, large customer count, and AI-related workload expansion.
For sellers, Snowflake is both a major enterprise software vendor and an internal buyer of cloud, security, data, GTM, marketplace, developer, and customer-success tooling. Its procurement teams will understand usage-based economics deeply.
What does Snowflake offer?
Snowflake offers data warehousing, Snowpark, Cortex AI, data engineering, data sharing, Iceberg support, Snowflake Marketplace, Native Apps, governance, security, and multi-cloud deployment.
- Cloud data warehouse· Core platform
- Snowpark· Developer / data engineering
- Cortex AI· AI
- Snowflake Marketplace· Data sharing
- Native Apps· Applications
- Governance and security· Platform
- Iceberg tables· Open table format
How does Snowflake make money?
Snowflake makes money through consumption-based usage of compute, storage, cloud services, serverless features, and committed capacity contracts.
Snowflake’s official pricing explains credits as the unit used to pay for compute resources, cloud services, and serverless features. Storage is priced separately by region and cloud, while committed-capacity contracts can lower effective rates versus on-demand use.
Revenue growth comes from workload migration, customer expansion, AI/data-engineering workloads, marketplace/native app adoption, and usage growth inside large accounts. Product revenue, net revenue retention, RPO, and $1M+ customer count are the key public metrics.
Because pricing varies by cloud, region, edition, and commitment, this profile does not invent a universal per-credit price. Sellers should expect Snowflake buyers to model usage, cost governance, and ROI carefully.
Who leads Snowflake?
Snowflake is led by CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy, with founders and executives including Benoit Dageville, Thierry Cruanes, Marcin Zukowski, Christian Kleinerman, and finance/GTM leaders shaping the platform.
- Sridhar RamaswamyChief Executive OfficerCEO since 2024Former Neeva co-founder and Google ads leader driving Snowflake’s AI strategy.
- Benoit DagevilleCo-founder and President of ProductCo-founder since 2012Core architect of Snowflake’s data platform.
- Thierry CruanesCo-founderCo-founder since 2012Technical co-founder and database systems leader.
- Marcin ZukowskiCo-founderCo-founder since 2012Database systems co-founder.
- Christian KleinermanEVP of ProductExecutive teamLeads product strategy and platform roadmap.
How do you contact Snowflake's leadership?
Snowflake does not publish verified personal executive emails in the sources used. Use official sales, investor relations, press, partner, and support routes rather than guessed personal addresses.
Public contact/sales routes; personal executive email format not verified- Investor relationsInvestor contact routehttps://investors.snowflake.com/resources/investor-email-alerts/default.aspx
How much funding has Snowflake raised?
Snowflake raised about $1.4 billion privately before its 2020 IPO, including a $479 million Series G led by Dragoneer at a $12.4 billion valuation; Sequoia partnered in 2018 and held a significant pre-IPO stake.
Snowflake was founded in 2012 and incubated/backed early by Sutter Hill before later rounds from Redpoint, Altimeter, ICONIQ, Sequoia, Dragoneer, Salesforce Ventures, and others. Sequoia lists Snowflake as partnered in 2018 and IPO 2020.
The last major private round was a $479 million Series G in February 2020 led by Dragoneer at a $12.4 billion valuation. At IPO, Snowflake raised about $3.4 billion, with Berkshire Hathaway and Salesforce Ventures purchasing shares in parallel arrangements.
Snowflake is now public, so current valuation is market-based. The funding story matters mainly because the company had enough late-stage capital and enterprise validation to build an enduring data-platform franchise before listing.
How did Snowflake get here?
Snowflake moved through a series of financing, product, and scale milestones.
- 2012FoundedBenoit Dageville, Thierry Cruanes, and Marcin Zukowski found Snowflake.
- 2014Public launchSnowflake emerges from stealth with its cloud data warehouse.
- 2018Growth financingSnowflake raises late-stage capital as cloud data adoption accelerates.
- 2020NYSE IPOSnowflake completes one of the largest software IPOs of the period.
- 2023Data cloud expansionSnowflake expands beyond warehousing into apps, collaboration, and AI-oriented data workloads.
- 2026Public data platformSnowflake operates as a public enterprise data cloud company.
Who are Snowflake's competitors?
Snowflake competes with cloud data warehouses, lakehouse platforms, hyperscaler analytics stacks, and data/AI platforms.
- DatabricksLakehouse platform with strong Spark, ML, and open data format positioning.
- Google BigQueryServerless cloud data warehouse native to Google Cloud.
- Amazon RedshiftAWS-native warehouse with deep AWS ecosystem integration.
- Microsoft FabricMicrosoft analytics platform integrated with Azure and Power BI.
- OracleEnterprise database and autonomous data warehouse suite.
Snowflake — frequently asked questions
