In an updated S-1 filing, Snowflake raises its expected IPO price by around 30% which would value the company between $27.7B-$30.5B compared to $20.9B-$23.7B
a dozen VCs to me, this year https://www.cnbc.com/... @cnbcdisruptors : Snowflake raised its estimated IPO price by around 30% in a new S-1 filing earlier today. This #Disruptor50 debut is on track to be one of the most popular in a flurry of tech IPOs this month. https://www.cnbc.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Snowflake's roadshow is repricing in real time. The August filing showed the growth case — first-half revenue up to $242M from $104M YoY — and last week's $250M anchor commitments from Salesforce and Berkshire Hathaway signaled institutional demand strong enough for bankers to lift the range once already.
Today's ~30% raise to a $27.7B-$30.5B valuation is the second bump inside a week, and it lands in a crowded September window where Snowflake is positioned as the marquee software debut. The question the filing answers is how much demand was left unserved at the old range.
First-order effects
- Investors allocated shares in the deal now pay roughly 30% more per share than the prior range implied, including the Salesforce and Berkshire commitments pegged to the earlier ~$21B-$23.7B valuation.
- Existing holders — Sutter Hill, Altimeter, ICONIQ, Redpoint, Sequoia — see their post-IPO stakes marked up proportionally before a single share trades.
Second-order effects
- A raise this steep invites the underpricing critique: when the stock ultimately priced at $120 against an original $75-$85 range and opened at $245, the gap between IPO price and first trade becomes the story every banker and CFO in the pipeline has to answer for.
- Rival issuers in this month's tech IPO flurry gain a fresh comp — Snowflake's demand signal lets their bankers argue for ranges above the ones set even days earlier.
Third-order effects
- If hot software debuts keep pricing far above range and doubling on open, IPO mechanics shift structurally toward auction-like discovery, pressuring the fixed-range bookbuild that banks use to allocate cheap stock to favored clients.
The trend: Late-2020's tech IPO wave is testing whether bookbuilt pricing can keep pace with retail-and-institutional demand, with each repriced filing raising the bar for the next issuer.