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"Snowflake" is not always nice to call someone, but it evokes something much more flattering in the field of technology, where it refers to the dreaded startup that has attracted the attention with a series of partnerships and high-level clients.
Snowflake has made a splash in the world of startups with cloud-based data storage technology that has caught the attention of cloud startups, data-driven companies, and cloud giants themselves: joining existing links with Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.
"Snowflake will completely transform data warehouses because of its scale and the economic situation," said CEO Frank Slootman in San Francisco on stage at the summit. This is his first public appearance since the replacement of former chief executive Bob Muglia in May.
According to Constellation Research, the company's dynamism highlights a growing cloud database market whose value is expected to reach $ 100 billion by 2025. Snowflake is on the verge of becoming a dominant player in this domain with a technology that solves a major technological problem in business: store, manage and find ways to use a lot of data in the cloud.
Indeed, Snowflake has raised more than $ 900 million from companies like Sequoia Capital and ICONiQ, most recently worth $ 3.9 billion. This growth has also attracted a nascent, but growing, ecosystem of startups eager to bet on building with the Snowflake platform.
We talked to some of the Snowflake orbit startups and industry experts to determine what sparked the interest of this boiling startup.
"It's new, it's wearing a fashionable name, it's part of a fashionable segment," said Enderle Group badyst Rob Enderle at Business Insider. "It's a cloud-based, enterprise-clbad and cost-effective cloud warehouse solution. What does not love?
Trendy name, trendy segment
"Like many small businesses, growth difficulties and leadership issues still have a negative impact on growth," said Enderle. "But they have a decent number of branded companies that use them and they have not made any terminal errors, to my knowledge."
He was referring to the sudden departure of former CEO Bob Muglia, replaced last month by Slootman. On Tuesday, Slootman categorically denied that he would have been hired primarily to make the company public.
Read more: Here's why Snowflake, a data warehouse startup worth $ 3.9 billion, is so popular, according to its partners and experts
Slootman said in his speech that Snowflake has about 2,000 customers around the world and adds about 300 to 400 per quarter. The company was also "on a 3x ramp" on its finances, he said.
"I will try to keep this as long as we can," he said, after also admitting that one of the first things he had asked for when he had taken his functions was: "Why did you call [the company] Snowflake?"
The reason is that Snowflake's founders – Benoit Dageville, Thierry Cruanes and Marcin Zukowski – were skiing at Lake Tahoe when they proposed the company's name, according to company spokeswoman Danica Stanczak. . They discussed their ideas and company names for brainstorming. They were hit by "Snowflake" because the snow comes from the cloud, just like the product, Snowflake, "she told Business Insider.
The product quickly became a success: its technology provides the software layer needed to store and badyze huge amounts of business data.
"They are the key to growing cloud databases and have one of the easiest products to use," said badyst Ray Wang of Constellation Research at Business Insider.
Opportunities for other startups
Snowflake's technology has also evolved to open up opportunities for other cloud start-up companies looking to meet other needs related to cloud storage and data management.
One of them is Sigma Computing, based in San Francisco, which develops tools that allow different teams in a company (programmers, sales, marketing) to process and learn from data stored in the cloud. CEO Rob Woolen was a resident in residence at Sutter Hill Ventures, where he met Mike Speiser, a founding investor of Snowflake. Woolen said that he quickly saw Snowflake as an ideal partner for starting cloud-based Business Intelligence.
Sigma's technology allows "programmers and all players in the sales, marketing and finance sector" to "work directly on the same environment with the same data," he told Business Insider. "Anyone who knows how to use a spreadsheet can open Sigma and, instead of a wall of code, they can perform any badysis on Snowflake."
Fivetran, another Snowflake-based startup, is offering technology that helps businesses move data to cloud storage faster and more efficiently. The founder and CEO, George Fraser, said that he was attending the 2015 Amazon Invent Web Services meeting when he spoke with Dageville, the One of the founders of Snowflake. They ended up talking about forming a partnership.
"At the time, Snowflake was not yet the unicorn of today and had a little over a hundred employees. At that time, the others Space tools were also hesitant and did not want to make Snowflake a destination, but Fivetran quickly realized that Snowflake was doing something good, "says Fraser.
A Gartner report said Snowflake's customers were optimistic about the key aspects of the technology, including its capabilities, price, and the ease with which it could use the platform. But Snowflake is growing rapidly and expanding its customer base to more than 1,000 organizations since it became available in 2015.
According to Gartner, this "period of excessive growth" can be a challenge for the organization that wants to continue to provide the same level of customer engagement as its customers expect. "
Build a network
However, Eric Anderson, director of Scale Venture Partners, said Snowflake's ability to form a network of cloud partners was one of its key strengths. Scale Venture Partners has invested in Matillion, a start-up in partnership with Snowflake.
"If you want advanced machine learning or if you have to transfer data in a snowflake, they will involve partners in the transaction," he told Business Insider. "This way, Snowflake's customers are looking for the best product and also benefit from the convenience of a network of partners similar to a suite."
Slootman said Snowflake was also ready to act quickly to meet the needs of its customers. In fact, that's why Google Cloud is supported. This had always been part of Snowflake's strategic plan, he said, but they decided to act faster at the request of a large customer, the pharmaceutical and health giant, McKesson.
But "when you have a big institution like this, you're not just going to drag your feet," he told Business Insider. "You will leave quickly."
Do you have any advice regarding Snowflake, another tech company or a startup? Contact this reporter by e-mail at the address [email protected], him message on Twitter@benpimentel, or send him a secure message via Signal at 510.731.8429. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.
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