Snowflake To Expand Data Clean Room Service Offering With Acquisition

The data cloud provider is buying Samooha, a developer of software that simplifies the process of building and operating a clean room system for sharing data under governed conditions.

Data cloud giant Snowflake has struck a deal to acquire startup Samooha, a developer of secure data collaboration technology, in a move that will allow Snowflake to expand its data clean room services.

Data clean rooms provide a way to collaborate using sensitive data with strict privacy, security and compliance policies. They provide controlled, governed environments where data from multiple sources – even separate businesses and organizations – can be aggregated for data analysis, marketing and advertising, and other tasks without exposing direct access to underlying data and business logic.

Samooha has developed technology that speeds up the building and implementation of data clean rooms and reduce their complexity, said Christian Kleinerman, Snowflake senior vice president of product, in a blog post Monday.

“We’re excited to announce today that Snowflake has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Samooha to accelerate our vision for removing the technical, collaboration, and financial barriers to unlocking value with data clean rooms,” Kleierman said. “Samooha is built for developers and business users and delivers industry specific analysis templates. Samooha’s intuitive user interface makes it easy to build data clean rooms that run as Snowflake Native Apps in the Data Cloud

Snowflake already offers data clean room services incorporating the Snowflake Horizon data governance system and “differential privacy” technology Snowflake acquired earlier this year when it bought LeapYear.

“Building a data clean room from the ground up can be challenging and require technical expertise and significant investment,” Kleinerman said. “By prioritizing ease of use, Samooha dramatically speeds up data clean room set-up and reduces complexity, making the decision to use data clean rooms an easy one. And because Samooha runs directly in the Data Cloud, Samooha leverages the built-in security and governance capabilities of Snowflake, which ensures that customer data is secure and governed.”

Samooha, headquartered in Los Altos Hills, Calif., launched in February of this year with $12.5 million in funding provided by Snowflake Ventures and Altimeter Capital.

Kleinerman said that Samooha co-founders CEO Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan and CTO Abhishek Bhomick, along with other Samooha employees, would join Snowflake.

The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Snowflake did not provide a timetable for completing the acquisition, saying that it is subject to customary closing conditions.

In November 2022, Amazon Web Services launched a clean room service specifically targeting advertising and marketing organizations.