Snowflake Inc. has made a bold move this holiday season by announcing their acquisition of startup company Samooha. The tech giant adds this purchase to their growing list of major deals in recent months.
This groundbreaking transaction, set to close by the end of the month, gives Snowflake access to Samooha’s revolutionary “cross-cloud” data collaboration suite. This suite provides businesses with a secure platform to share, collaborate, and gain insights from their own and their partners’ data, regardless of the underlying data stack.
The deal also brings an undisclosed amount of cash and/or stock to Samooha, in addition to the support of Snowflake’s massive technical and engineering infrastructure. All 19 of Samooha’s employees, including CEO Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan and co-founder Abhishek Bhowmick, will also be joining Snowflake in various capacities.
“This acquisition reinforces our mission to mobilize the world’s data by expanding the built-in capabilities of Snowflake’s platform for our customers,” said Carl Perry, director of product management at Snowflake, in an email to TechCrunch. “Samooha’s customers will now have access to the robust platform capabilities of Snowflake, as well as the powerful network of the Snowflake data cloud. Meanwhile, Snowflake’s customers will be able to easily and quickly build, connect, and utilize their data clean rooms directly within our platform.”
Samooha, based in Los Altos, California, was founded by Sivaramakrishnan and Bhowmick in 2022 and operates in the increasingly crowded field of data clean rooms. Notable competitors include AWS and startups like Herb. However, Samooha sets itself apart by relying heavily on the Snowflake ecosystem, as Snowflake was an early investor in the company.
Samooha’s native app on Snowflake allows customers to access and build clean room applications using a user-friendly interface with no coding required. The company targeted industries they believed were underserved, such as healthcare, financial services, advertising, retail, and entertainment. They also claimed to have several Fortune 500 brands among their customer base.
In fact, Samooha had already gained significant traction with customers, helping them secure $12.5 million in funding from investors, including Altimeter Capital, prior to the acquisition. This valued the startup at around $40 million after the money was invested.
“Samooha’s original hypothesis was that the newest realm of data and AI would be built upon a foundation of secure data sharing and collaboration,” said Sivaramakrishnan in a statement via email. “By joining forces with Snowflake, Samooha will have an even stronger ability to assist enterprises in seamless collaboration while prioritizing the governance, privacy, and security of their data. Businesses and organizations, such as healthcare providers, financial institutions, and large media platforms, now have the potential to establish strong value exchange and connections within their respective customer and partner ecosystems.”
Investing in data clean room technology could prove incredibly profitable for Snowflake in the long run, especially as they continue to surpass investor expectations. According to Gartner, by the end of this year, 80% of advertisers who spend more than $1 billion a year on media will have utilized data clean rooms for tasks such as analytics, measuring campaign results, and simplifying data integration. Additionally, a survey conducted in early 2023 revealed that 29% of marketers in the U.S. anticipate focusing more on data clean rooms this year compared to 2022. Given Snowflake’s interest, this prediction seems entirely feasible.
