Today, we announced the launch of our first global Snowflake Startup Challenge for early-stage startups that are building or considering building data applications. Qualifying startups can now compete for up to a $250,000 investment from Snowflake and exposure to top-tier venture capital firms. 

“We look forward to rewarding top startups who embody the Snowflake vision to mobilize the world’s data,” Snowflake Co-Founder and President of Product Benoit Dageville said. “Snowflake’s architecture makes it an ideal platform for developing data applications, and we continue to be impressed with how application builders innovate to launch their own data products in the Data Cloud.” 

Why build on Snowflake?

As a former startup, Snowflake understands the challenges young organizations face. We take pride in our platform, which removes many of the traditional obstacles that startups encounter when working with data, including the management of complex infrastructure. 

Snowflake’s platform provides separation of compute and storage, auto-scaling, per-second pricing, native support for semi-structured data, and secure data sharing—all of which empower startups to build differentiated applications faster. 

With the Data Cloud, startups can focus on building and growing their data applications rather than managing infrastructure. Hundreds of companies have already adopted Snowflake’s platform to build data intensive applications such as customer 360, IoT, machine learning, security, and embedded analytics applications.

The Snowflake ecosystem also allows startups to leverage integrations with a broad range of technology partners and take advantage of a global network where thousands of organizations mobilize data with our platform’s near-unlimited scale, concurrency, and performance.

The Startup Challenge takes Snowflake’s support for promising startups one step further by providing the opportunity to benefit from additional funding, access to experts, marketing exposure, and support. 

What startups are eligible to participate?

Registration is now open! To qualify, candidates must meet all the requirements in the Official Rules including: 

  • Snowflake must be used as a core part of the architecture to power a customer-facing data application
  • Eligible startups must be independent legal entities with less than $2M in funding 

The submission period starts on November 17, 2020, and ends on March 30, 2021. Online submissions must include a demo video (up to five minutes long) and a description of the application. Registered participants can access an extended trial account with $400 in credits for the duration of the competition.

At the end of April 2021, up to 10 semi-finalists will be announced. Semi-finalists will be required to submit additional materials, including an investor pitch video recording (up to five minutes), and provide access to their application. 

Three finalists will be named in May 2021, and these three startups will present a live pitch to judges at Snowflake Summit in summer 2021, where the grand prize winner will be announced.

Review the rules and FAQ for more details.

How will startups be evaluated?

The following questions demonstrate the type of criteria that will be used to evaluate candidates:

  • How do you use Snowflake’s unique capabilities to power your application? 
  • How is your application fresh and original, and does it enable you to build a competitive advantage? 
  • What is the business potential for your application? 
  • Does your leadership team have the ability to execute?

Judging the challenge and selecting the winner will be Benoit Dageville, Snowflake Co-Founder and President of Product; Denise Persson, Snowflake Chief Marketing Officer; Mike Speiser, Managing Director at Sutter Hill Ventures; and Carl Eschenbach, Partner at Sequoia Capital.

The grand prize winner may receive up to a $250,000 investment from Snowflake. In addition, Snowflake will provide co-marketing opportunities and access to its internal experts for advice on application design.

Let’s Build!

The Startup Challenge represents one more way Snowflake can promote broader innovation and support continued growth in the Data Cloud. We hope you’re as excited as we are about this challenge, and we look forward to receiving your entry. To learn more, visit snowflake.com/startupchallenge.