Snowflake, a US-based cloud data software provider backed by financial services firm Capital One and enterprise software producer Salesforce, has confidentially filed for an initial public offering, Bloomberg reported yesterday.
Financial terms have not been confirmed but a subsequent report from the Financial Times (FT) claimed bankers had told Snowflake it could fetch a valuation of $15bn to $20bn in an IPO. The company was valued at $12.4bn as of its last funding four months ago.
Founded in 2012, Snowflake offers a cloud-based data software platform that enables clients to store, move and analyse large amounts of data across multiple cloud service providers including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.
Snowflake is targeting a public listing this summer but could hold off until September or October if market conditions are not favourable, according to the FT’s sources. It has hired investment bank Goldman Sachs to advise it on the offering.
The company most recently secured $479m in a series G round co-led by Salesforce’s corporate venture capital unit, Salesforce Ventures, and investment firm Dragoneer in February this year.
Altimeter Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Iconiq Capital, Madrona Venture Group and Sutter Hill Ventures filled out the series G round, which brought Snowflake’s total funding to more than $1.3bn.
Capital One Growth Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of Capital One, contributed to a $450m round for the company in October 2018 that was led by Sequoia and also backed by Altimeter, Sutter Hill, Meritech Capital, Iconiq Capital, Madrona, Redpoint Ventures and Wing Ventures.
All those investors apart from Meritech Capital had banded together to provide $263m in funding for Snowflake in January 2018, just four months after it received $105m in a series D round led by Iconiq that included Capital One Growth Ventures, Madrona, Redpoint, Altimeter, Wing Ventures and Sutter Hill.
