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Snowflake: Mobilizing the World’s Data // THREAD
The Basics 
Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data–so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.
Data is the new oil and $SNOW is changing the way the world stores, views, and analyzes it.
Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data–so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.
Data is the new oil and $SNOW is changing the way the world stores, views, and analyzes it.
Founded in 2012, $SNOW has grown into a leader in the cloud data warehousing space
Snowflake is a turnkey, public cloud data-warehouse-as-a-service company helping companies centralize all their application and SaaS data to analyze & make business decisions quickly and reliably
Snowflake is a turnkey, public cloud data-warehouse-as-a-service company helping companies centralize all their application and SaaS data to analyze & make business decisions quickly and reliably
The company was originally founded by 3 data warehousing experts
Their names-Benoit Dageville and Thierry Cruanes
Two former Oracle employees that held over 120 patents between them
Their idea- Build a cloud-native data warehouse from the ground up
Their names-Benoit Dageville and Thierry Cruanes
Two former Oracle employees that held over 120 patents between them
Their idea- Build a cloud-native data warehouse from the ground up
Former CEO of cloud king, ServiceNow ($NOW), Frank Slootman leads this rapidly growing company
It's the #2 fastest growing SaaS Companies ever at IPO, which attracted a pre-IPO investment from Warren Buffett, his first IPO investment since Ford Motor Company in 1956
It's the #2 fastest growing SaaS Companies ever at IPO, which attracted a pre-IPO investment from Warren Buffett, his first IPO investment since Ford Motor Company in 1956
Snowflake went public in Sept of 2020 & instantly made historical waves
Debuting on the NYSE, the data warehousing company became the largest software company to IPO in the U.S., ever
Snowflake is on a mission to become the analytics engine for all enterprises
Debuting on the NYSE, the data warehousing company became the largest software company to IPO in the U.S., ever
Snowflake is on a mission to become the analytics engine for all enterprises
Leadership
CEO Frank Slootman came out of retirement in 2018 to bolster his not too shabby resume
He transformed Data Domain from a 20-person company into a billion dollars in sales
Then he went to $NOW in 2011 only to increase their revenue from $75M to $1.5B in 6 yrs
CEO Frank Slootman came out of retirement in 2018 to bolster his not too shabby resume
He transformed Data Domain from a 20-person company into a billion dollars in sales
Then he went to $NOW in 2011 only to increase their revenue from $75M to $1.5B in 6 yrs
Customers 
$SNOW has close to 200 Fortune 500 clients now, up 46% in the past year alone
They've achieved 88% YoY growth in customers over $1M+ in revenue
Top customers include- CapitalOne, Adobe, Office Depot, Hulu, Sony, Instacart, Chime, DocuSign, DoorDash, and Strava.
$SNOW has close to 200 Fortune 500 clients now, up 46% in the past year alone
They've achieved 88% YoY growth in customers over $1M+ in revenue
Top customers include- CapitalOne, Adobe, Office Depot, Hulu, Sony, Instacart, Chime, DocuSign, DoorDash, and Strava.
The Product
Unlike traditional on-premise Hadoop-based databases like Cloudera & HortonWorks, Snowflake is born on the cloud and requires no infrastructure
No buying and deploying servers, networking, and storage, just pipe your data into Snowflake & run queries against it
Unlike traditional on-premise Hadoop-based databases like Cloudera & HortonWorks, Snowflake is born on the cloud and requires no infrastructure
No buying and deploying servers, networking, and storage, just pipe your data into Snowflake & run queries against it
It’s a fully managed data warehouse that’s massively scalable, high performing, easy to use, has complete elasticity & a usage-based pricing model so customers only have to pay what they use
The architecture has 3 layers:
- Data storage
- Data computing
- Data cloud services
The architecture has 3 layers:
- Data storage
- Data computing
- Data cloud services
Customers can feed massive sets of raw data into their cloud and receive analytics-ready data right back
Similar to Shopify, it’s truly a turn-key, fully managed solution for businesses
Customers don't need to worry about sizing and scaling their servers, Snowflake handles it
Similar to Shopify, it’s truly a turn-key, fully managed solution for businesses
Customers don't need to worry about sizing and scaling their servers, Snowflake handles it
Why Snowflake?
Customers choose Snowflake for its:
- integration of diverse data types
- secure sharing
- flexibility
- deep ecosystem of integrations & tooling
- massive scalability w/o sacrificing performance
- simultaneous user access
- ease of use
- expanding use cases
Customers choose Snowflake for its:
- integration of diverse data types
- secure sharing
- flexibility
- deep ecosystem of integrations & tooling
- massive scalability w/o sacrificing performance
- simultaneous user access
- ease of use
- expanding use cases
$SNOW allows customers to store, manage, analyze, & share high volumes of structured & unstructured data
Traditional data storage networks include multiple databases, warehouses, & data lakes
Snowflake breaks down those silos and places the data on a single cloud platform
Traditional data storage networks include multiple databases, warehouses, & data lakes
Snowflake breaks down those silos and places the data on a single cloud platform
Flexibility & Ease of Use
Most competitors are native to a single public cloud option
Snowflake uses AWS, GCP, and Azure, allowing them to scale up and down quickly and dynamically when customers need more storage or to process a large query
Most competitors are native to a single public cloud option
Snowflake uses AWS, GCP, and Azure, allowing them to scale up and down quickly and dynamically when customers need more storage or to process a large query
Previously in the on-premise data warehousing world, once a customer bought a certain amount of physical storage and compute, they were stuck with those resources and didn't have the "elasticity" of the cloud to spin up compute resources on demand
Separation of Storage & Compute
Snowflake beat its competitors to the punch here separating where the data is held (storage) from the act of querying (compute), which helped them differentiate and gain market share by driving down costs for their customers and increasing scale
Snowflake beat its competitors to the punch here separating where the data is held (storage) from the act of querying (compute), which helped them differentiate and gain market share by driving down costs for their customers and increasing scale
Snowflake has earned some difficult to acquire compliance certifications such as HIPAA and FedRAMP, leading the pack in security
It’s not a coincidence that some of their largest customers deal with sensitive information such as Capital One, DocuSign, and Experian
It’s not a coincidence that some of their largest customers deal with sensitive information such as Capital One, DocuSign, and Experian
Secure Data Sharing
The company’s S-1 notes that the "data-sharing opportunity" has "not been defined or quantified by any research institutions" but considers it to be "substantial and largely untapped."
The company’s S-1 notes that the "data-sharing opportunity" has "not been defined or quantified by any research institutions" but considers it to be "substantial and largely untapped."
$SNOW allows customers to share data tables with others outside of their organization in a secure way
This has created a "Data Marketplace" that could potentially have extensive network effects & alternative applications such as monetization of enterprise data by data brokers
This has created a "Data Marketplace" that could potentially have extensive network effects & alternative applications such as monetization of enterprise data by data brokers
"The Snowflake Data Marketplace is a disruptive new technology that will redefine how companies acquire, leverage and monetize data to power their businesses”
Rakuten Rewards allowed their 3K merchants to have access to Snowflake so their merchants had a view into conversion
Rakuten Rewards allowed their 3K merchants to have access to Snowflake so their merchants had a view into conversion
$TTD and $Z are already monetizing their data with $SNOW by allowing their subscribers access to anonymized data sets from their platforms.
Lime, the scooter & bike-sharing provider, is providing ridership & route data to cities in order to help promote their city initiatives
Lime, the scooter & bike-sharing provider, is providing ridership & route data to cities in order to help promote their city initiatives
Business Model 
Snowflake’s pricing model aligns itself with its customers by being usage-based, which differs from the typical per-user SaaS model
Customers only pay for what they actually use
Snowflake’s pricing model aligns itself with its customers by being usage-based, which differs from the typical per-user SaaS model
Customers only pay for what they actually use
This model is one of the reasons why Snowflake has the second-highest net dollar retention among all Public SaaS companies
The first is Agora $API, another usage-based model
Snowflake also bills storage, compute, & cloud services separately
The first is Agora $API, another usage-based model
Snowflake also bills storage, compute, & cloud services separately
The Market Opportunity 
Snowflake's total addressable market (TAM) is pegged to be around $81B, but similar to companies like Salesforce, this could end up being a dynamic and expansive TAM
Gartner predicts 75% of databases will be in the cloud by as soon as 2022
Snowflake's total addressable market (TAM) is pegged to be around $81B, but similar to companies like Salesforce, this could end up being a dynamic and expansive TAM
Gartner predicts 75% of databases will be in the cloud by as soon as 2022
By 2023, global data storage is expected to nearly double, reaching ~$176B in revenue and 11.7 zettabytes in storage
$SNOW is positioning itself as not just a data warehouse or platform, but a full-fledged data cloud
$SNOW is positioning itself as not just a data warehouse or platform, but a full-fledged data cloud
Unstructured data is growing between 40-50% per year, which present a big growth opportunity for an analytical data cloud such as $SNOW
International expansion also presents a great opportunity, as 85% of $SNOW revenue currently comes from the Americas
International expansion also presents a great opportunity, as 85% of $SNOW revenue currently comes from the Americas
To recap, the following will be major growth tailwinds for Snowflake:
- Large market opportunity for cloud data platform
- Explosion of data & its expanding applications
- Rise of unstructured data
- Shift from on-premise to cloud adoption
- International expansion
- Large market opportunity for cloud data platform
- Explosion of data & its expanding applications
- Rise of unstructured data
- Shift from on-premise to cloud adoption
- International expansion
Financials 
There’s really no way around this, Snowflake is growing incredibly fast
There’s a reason their IPO created waves on Wall Street, they’re one of the fastest-growing software companies out there
There’s really no way around this, Snowflake is growing incredibly fast
There’s a reason their IPO created waves on Wall Street, they’re one of the fastest-growing software companies out there
Rapid Customer Growth 
In the last year alone, Snowflake has more than doubled its # of customers
They have a $710 million revenue run rate from over 4100 customers (77 of them yielding over $1M+ in revenue), are processing 775 million queries per day, & have 100K+ MAUs
In the last year alone, Snowflake has more than doubled its # of customers
They have a $710 million revenue run rate from over 4100 customers (77 of them yielding over $1M+ in revenue), are processing 775 million queries per day, & have 100K+ MAUs
Consistent Revenue Growth
From 2019 to 2020, the company’s annual revenue grew by over 173% to $264M
6 months later, they achieved an annual run rate of $483M
In their FY2021, they hit $553.8M in revenue (120% YoY growth), with Q4 revenue hitting $178.3 million (+116% YoY)
From 2019 to 2020, the company’s annual revenue grew by over 173% to $264M
6 months later, they achieved an annual run rate of $483M
In their FY2021, they hit $553.8M in revenue (120% YoY growth), with Q4 revenue hitting $178.3 million (+116% YoY)
