Snowflake shares fell 12% on guidance fails and purchase of search startup Neeva

Snowflake shares fell 12% on guidance fails and purchase of search startup Neeva

Snowflake shares fell 12%

Snowflake shares fell more than 12% in extended trading on Wednesday after the firm offered a dismal outlook in its quarterly report and announced an unreported acquisition of search engine Neeva.

Below is how the firm performed:

Earnings per share: Refinitiv reports that the adjusted earnings per share stood at 15 cents, surpassing analysts’ expectations of 5 cents.
Revenue: $624 million vs. $608 million expected by analysts, as reported by Refinitiv

The firm’s sales rose 48% year over year in the first quarter of fiscal year 2024, but that rise was smaller compared to the 85% boost in the last-year fiscal quarter. The majority of Snowflake’s sales were generated by product revenue, which increased by 50% year over year. Product sales include the utilization of Snowflake’s software for storing and performing queries on data held in its system.

Snowflake reported that it predicts revenue will be between $620 million and $625 million in the second financial quarter. That would portray annual growth between 33% and 34%. That figure was much lower than the StreetAccount forecast of $649 million.

For the 2024 fiscal year, Snowflake called for product gross sales of $2.6 billion. The StreetAccount conclusion was $2.7 billion.

Compared to a loss of $165.8 million, or 53 cents per share, during the same period last year, Snowflake reported a total loss of $225 million, or 70 cents per share.

Snowflake has announced intentions to buy Neeva, a privacy-focused search firm co-founded by former Google executive Sridhar Ramaswamy.

Snowflake’s co-founder and president of products, Benoit Dageville, posted to his blog that the company plans to “infuse and leverage” Neeva’s AI-equipped search products throughout its cloud services. The agreement’s exact specifics weren’t made available to the public.

“Neeva allows us to tap into some of the most cutting-edge search technologies available to bring search and conversation in Snowflake to a new level,” Dageville stated.

The purchase followed after Neeva, which was established in 2019, announced it would close its consumer search engine to focus on creating use cases for AI and large language models.

The firm will host its quarterly call with investors on Wednesday at 5 p.m. ET.