Snowflake overview
Snowflake sells a cloud data platform that organizations use to store, query and share large volumes of business data and to build AI applications on top of it. Its main product, the Snowflake AI Data Cloud, is a fully managed service that runs inside Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, so customers never install or tune database software themselves. The company also develops Streamlit, a widely used open-source Python framework for data apps that it acquired in 2022.
Benoît Dageville and Thierry Cruanes, two longtime database architects at Oracle, started the company in July 2012 in San Mateo, California, together with Marcin Żukowski, a Polish researcher who had co-founded the analytical database company VectorWise. Sutter Hill Ventures backed the project from the start, and its managing director Mike Speiser served as part-time chief executive until 2014. The founders designed their warehouse for the cloud from scratch: data sits in inexpensive object storage, and any number of independent compute clusters can query it at the same time. Snowflake came out of stealth in October 2014 under Bob Muglia, a former Microsoft executive, and made the service generally available on AWS in June 2015.
Adding more clouds widened the market. Snowflake began running on Azure in 2018 and on Google Cloud in 2020, and in 2019 the board hired Frank Slootman, who had earlier taken ServiceNow public, as chief executive. Slootman led Snowflake’s September 2020 listing on the New York Stock Exchange, which raised about $3.4 billion and was then the largest initial public offering by a software company; Berkshire Hathaway and Salesforce each bought $250 million of stock alongside it. In the years that followed, Snowflake marketed its product as the Data Cloud, stressing a marketplace where organizations exchange live data with one another.
Sridhar Ramaswamy, a former head of Google’s advertising products who joined Snowflake when it bought his search startup Neeva in 2023, succeeded Slootman as CEO in February 2024 and pointed the company toward AI. Snowflake renamed its platform the AI Data Cloud, added managed large language model services under the Cortex brand, bought Postgres specialist Crunchy Data in 2025 and observability company Observe in 2026, and launched agents that answer employees’ questions about company data in plain English. In 2024, criminals used stolen passwords to take data from the Snowflake accounts of customers including AT&T and Ticketmaster; investigators found no evidence that Snowflake’s own systems had been breached, and the company went on to phase out password-only sign-ins.
Snowflake reported revenue of about $4.7 billion for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2026, when it had 9,060 employees in 36 countries and more than 13,000 customers. After describing itself as having no formal headquarters and using Bozeman, Montana, as its principal executive office from 2021, it switched that address in its 2026 filings to Menlo Park, California, home to its largest offices.
Software by Snowflake
2 products profiled, from Snowflake AI Data Cloud (2015) to Streamlit (2019).
Snowflake history and milestones
- 2012
Benoît Dageville, Thierry Cruanes and Marcin Żukowski found Snowflake in San Mateo, California, with backing from Sutter Hill Ventures.
- 2014
Snowflake emerges from stealth with $26 million in funding and former Microsoft executive Bob Muglia as CEO.
- 2015
The Snowflake Elastic Data Warehouse becomes generally available on Amazon Web Services.
- 2018
Snowflake starts running on Microsoft Azure, its second cloud platform.
- 2019
Former ServiceNow CEO Frank Slootman replaces Bob Muglia as chief executive.
- 2020
Snowflake launches on Google Cloud and raises about $3.4 billion in a September IPO on the New York Stock Exchange.
- 2022
Snowflake acquires Streamlit, the company behind the open-source Python framework for data apps.
- 2023
Snowflake buys search startup Neeva and announces Cortex, a managed service for large language models.
- 2024
Sridhar Ramaswamy succeeds Frank Slootman as CEO, and the platform is rebranded as the AI Data Cloud.
- 2025
Snowflake acquires Postgres company Crunchy Data and makes its Snowflake Intelligence agent generally available.
- 2026
Snowflake completes its purchase of Observe, lists Menlo Park as its principal office and renames Snowflake Intelligence as CoWork.
Who founded Snowflake?
Benoît Dageville
Co-founder; CTO (2012 to 2019) and president of products (2019 to 2025)
Benoît Dageville spent more than 16 years at Oracle before co-founding Snowflake in 2012, working as an architect on parallel query execution for Oracle’s clustered database and in the group responsible for making its SQL engine self-managing. He earned his PhD in computer science at Université Paris VI.
At Snowflake he was chief technology officer until 2019 and then president of products until October 2025, shaping the platform’s design through the company’s IPO and its expansion into application development and AI. He has served on Snowflake’s board of directors since August 2012.
Thierry Cruanes
Co-founder; guides Snowflake’s technology vision
Thierry Cruanes co-founded Snowflake in 2012 with his Oracle colleague Benoît Dageville. He had worked at Oracle for 13 years on the query optimization and parallel execution layers of its database, including as the lead of its optimizer group, and before that spent seven years at IBM’s European Center for Applied Mathematics working on data mining.
Cruanes holds a PhD in computer science, specializing in database systems, from Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris. Snowflake describes him as overseeing its technology vision and taking part in key areas of product development.
Marcin Żukowski
Co-founder; led early engineering until leaving in 2024
Marcin Żukowski is a Polish computer scientist who did his doctoral research at CWI, the Dutch national research institute for mathematics and computer science in Amsterdam. There he developed vectorized query execution, which speeds up analytical queries by processing data in batches rather than one value at a time, and he went on to co-found VectorWise, a CWI spin-off that became part of Actian.
In 2012 he joined Dageville and Cruanes as Snowflake’s third founder, bringing vectorized execution and compression techniques into its architecture and building the company’s early development team. He left Snowflake in 2024 to work as an investor and consultant, and CWI awarded him its Dijkstra Fellowship that year.
How Snowflake makes money
Snowflake charges for consumption rather than for user seats. Customers use credits as virtual warehouses and other services run, with compute billed by the second, and they pay separately for data storage, measured in average terabytes per month, and for some data transfer. The edition a customer selects, from Standard through Business Critical, sets the price of each credit. Most larger customers sign capacity contracts of one to four years that commit them to a level of spending in return for better rates, while others pay on demand each month.
Because revenue is recognized as resources are consumed, customer usage drives each quarter’s results. In the fiscal year ended January 31, 2026, product revenue was about $4.47 billion out of roughly $4.68 billion in total revenue, with the rest coming from professional services such as implementation and training. At that date, 733 customers had generated more than $1 million each in product revenue over the previous 12 months.
Who owns and runs Snowflake?
Sridhar Ramaswamy has been Snowflake’s chief executive since February 2024. Frank Slootman, CEO from 2019 to 2024, has chaired the board since December 2019, and Sutter Hill Ventures managing director Mike Speiser, a director since 2012, is lead independent director. Brian Robins, previously GitLab’s finance chief, became CFO in September 2025, and co-founder Benoît Dageville remains on the board. Snowflake is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is owned by its public shareholders.
- Sridhar RamaswamyChief executive officer
- Frank SlootmanChairman of the board; CEO from 2019 to 2024
- Benoît DagevilleCo-founder and board member
- Thierry CruanesCo-founder
- Brian RobinsChief financial officer
Snowflake: frequently asked questions
Who founded Snowflake?
Snowflake was founded in July 2012 in San Mateo, California, by Benoît Dageville and Thierry Cruanes, two longtime database architects at Oracle, and Marcin Żukowski, a Polish researcher who co-founded the analytical database company VectorWise. Sutter Hill Ventures backed the company early, and its managing director Mike Speiser served as part-time CEO until 2014.
Who owns Snowflake?
Snowflake is a publicly traded company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker SNOW, so it is owned by its shareholders, including large institutional investors. It has been public since its September 2020 initial public offering and is not controlled by any parent company.
Who is the CEO of Snowflake?
Sridhar Ramaswamy is the CEO of Snowflake. He took over in February 2024 from Frank Slootman, who remained chairman of the board. Ramaswamy previously led Google’s advertising products and co-founded the search engine Neeva, which Snowflake acquired in 2023.
Where is Snowflake headquartered?
Snowflake lists its principal executive office in Menlo Park, California, where it leases its largest offices. From 2021 the company described itself as having no formal headquarters and used Bozeman, Montana, as its principal executive office, before switching its official filings to the Menlo Park address in 2026.
What software does Snowflake make?
Snowflake’s main product is the Snowflake AI Data Cloud, a managed platform for data warehousing, data engineering, data sharing and AI. It includes Snowpark for Python development, Cortex AI functions, the CoWork and CoCo agents and Snowflake Postgres. The company also maintains Streamlit, an open-source Python framework for building data apps.
Is Snowflake a public company?
Yes. Snowflake began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on September 16, 2020, under the ticker SNOW. Its initial public offering raised about $3.4 billion, which at the time made it the largest IPO ever by a software company.
How does Snowflake make money?
Snowflake makes money mainly from usage-based fees. Customers pay for the compute credits and storage they consume, either on demand or through prepaid capacity contracts of one to four years. In fiscal 2026, product revenue was about $4.47 billion out of roughly $4.68 billion in total revenue.
Sources
- Snowflake Inc. annual report on Form 10-K, fiscal 2026 sec.gov
- Snowflake leadership and board snowflake.com
- Snowflake Inc. 2026 proxy statement sec.gov
- Snowflake prices $3.4 billion IPO, Nasdaq nasdaq.com
- As many as 165 companies potentially exposed in Snowflake-related attacks, CyberScoop cyberscoop.com
- Snowflake Inc., Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org
Last reviewed . Spotted an error? Send a correction.