Snowflake, the AI Data Cloud company, has unveiled Snowflake for Startups at the grand opening of its Silicon Valley AI (SVAI) Hub. This evolution of the Powered by Snowflake program serves as a launchpad for founders to build and scale enterprise-grade AI applications on Snowflake's AI Data Cloud, offering new product capabilities, strategic VC relationships, and coworking opportunities.
Snowflake for Startups tackles key barriers like building secure AI infrastructure, diverting resources from product development. It grants dedicated inference capacity within Snowflake's security perimeter, allowing startups to select from leading frontier models to create AI agents and apps, distributable via the Snowflake ecosystem to thousands of customers for rapid growth.
"The magic of building on Snowflake is everything we didn't have to do. We didn't have to build a separate AI platform or worry about core security and governance from scratch,” said Assaf Henkin, Co-Founder and CEO at Jedify. “Snowflake handles all the complex infrastructure, so we can focus entirely on delivering the contextual data layers, powered by our Semantic Fusion™ technology, enabling powerful, enterprise-grade AI applications. It's the fastest path from an idea to a trusted product."
Snowflake is deepening ties with VCs including Altimeter, Amplify, Blackstone, Capital One Ventures, Coatue, Greylock, ICONIQ, IVP, Madrona, Menlo, Redpoint, and Asan Nanum Foundation (first in APJ). These partnerships offer early access to AI startups on Snowflake, free platform usage for portfolios, and collaboration with Snowflake experts, easing upfront costs for enterprise-grade builds.
"Snowflake sits at the epicenter of the AI and data revolution, giving them an unparalleled vantage point to spot emerging trends,” said Pauline Yang, Partner at Altimeter. “By working with Snowflake, we’re equipping our founders with the knowledge and tools to build secure, AI-native applications that solve customer problems from day one."
The program equips startups with:
“Snowflake for Startups has supported us at every stage, including through investment from Snowflake Ventures,” said Alexis Steinman, Co-CEO at Maxa, winner of a Snowflake Startup Challenge and more recently a Data Drivers Award. “Snowflake was the best platform to build our patent-pending reasoning and verification technology that extends the reach of generative AI to mainstream finance and business teams that struggle with complex systems of record. Snowflake's partnership lets us focus on our 'secret sauce' while delivering immediate enterprise-grade trust, scalability and frontier capabilities."
Snowflake for Startups unifies technology, capital, and community to propel AI innovation, helping startups compete with incumbents through secure, scalable infrastructure. As AI transforms enterprises, this initiative positions Snowflake as a foundational partner for the next wave of builders.
Learn More: Read this blog post to learn more about the vision behind Snowflake for Startups and how Snowflake is helping startups launch with confidence, build faster, and grow smarter. Sign up to be the first to get updates for Snowflake’s 2026 Startup Challenge. Stay up-to-date on upcoming events at the newly opened Silicon Valley AI Hub, a space designed for developers, startups, and business leaders to collaborate and shape the future of AI.
Snowflake is the platform for the AI era, making it easy for enterprises to innovate faster and get more value from data. More than 12,000 customers around the globe, including hundreds of the world’s largest companies, use Snowflake’s AI Data Cloud to build, use, and share data, apps and AI. With Snowflake, data and AI are transformative for everyone.
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