Snowflake to Acquire AI-Based Document Automation Provider Applica

Snowflake is buying Applica, a small company that offers an AI-based text and document automation platform. The news comes as Snowlake surprises investors with better-than-expected results.

Revenues for Snowflake’s fiscal second quarter topped $497 million rose 83% and surpassed consensus estimates of $467.5 million. Product revenue of $466 million exceeded expectations in the $435 million-$440 million range. Remaining performance obligations (RPO) grew 78% during the quarter ending July 31, totaling $2.7 billion.

Snowflake expects to recognize approximately 57% of that RPO as revenue during the next 12 months. That represents a 79% increase compared to the same period last year. Like many companies, foreign currency rates have impacted some results, but Snowflake CFO Mike Scarpelli said it was negligible.

Snowflake’s Mike Scarpelli

“Less than 5% of our revenue is invoiced in currencies other than the U.S. dollar,” he said.

Frank Slootman, Snowflake’s chairman and CEO doesn’t see economic headwinds causing companies to slow down their deployments.

“I would say Snowflake gets prioritized fairly high inside the enterprise,” Slootman said. “And the reason is, we’re sitting right on the intersection of cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning [and] advanced analytics. Customers have picked up the opportunity that is in front of them. And they’re investing; they’re hiring or buying because these are things are going to bring big changes. Whole industries are going to get redefined in health care, in pharma, in financial services. So this is not business as usual.”

Applica Acquisition

Slootman announced the deal during Snowflake’s quarterly earnings call this week.

Snowflake’s Frank Slootman

“Applica mobilizes unstructured data for advanced analytics and machine learning,” he said. Furthermore, “Applica’s team and best-in-class technology will create opportunities for customers and partners to get more value from all data types.”

The document automation company is based in Poland but has offices in London and New York and has roughly 100 employees. Snowflake senior VP of product Christian Kleinerman described Applica as “a platform understanding,” adding that Applica will make it easier to leverage unstructured data.

“For organizations looking to gain a competitive advantage, tapping into the massive volumes of unstructured data is critical,” he noted.

Kleinerman said details about integrating Applica with Snowflake would follow in the coming months after the deal closes. But it will build on the company’s recent addition of support for unstructured data in the Snowflake Data Cloud.