Party on!

16 September 2020 By Robert Cyran Follow @rob_cyran

Shares in the data-warehouse firm, already the biggest U.S. public listing of the year, more than doubled in early first-day trading. At about $80 bln, the money-losing firm is worth some 200 times trailing sales. It’s an apt expression of the panicked greed gripping investors.

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Shares in Snowflake rose more than 150% on its first day of trading on Sept. 16, hitting a high of $319 apiece before sliding back somewhat. The data-warehouse firm sold 28 million shares at $120 each.

Berkshire Hathaway and Salesforce Ventures both agreed to buy $250 million of new stock in the company in a private placement at the same price as the IPO. Counting these investments, the company’s market capitalization exceeded $80 billion at its peak.

Snowflake’s last funding round earlier this year valued the company at about $12 billion. Its revenue was $242 million for the first six months of 2020, an increase of 132% from the same period last year. Snowflake’s operating loss for the most recent six months was $174 million, compared with an operating loss of $183 million in the first half of 2019.

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