Snowflake announces its intent to buy observability platform Observe

Snowflake is poised to strengthen its offerings by acquiring Observe, an observability platform intricately designed on Snowflake’s databases since its inception. This acquisition, which is contingent on regulatory approval, was confirmed by Snowflake on January 8, marking a significant step in its mission to provide comprehensive data solutions. Observability platforms are essential for organizations aiming to monitor software systems and data efficiently, identifying performance issues and bugs. With this integration, Snowflake aims to create a seamless environment for customers to gather and manage their telemetry data, including logs, metrics, and traces, facilitating quicker detection of bugs and software issues. Founded in 2017 by Jacob Leverich, Jonathan Trevor, and Ang Li, Observe launched its first product in 2018, leveraging a centralized Snowflake database. The company, which has garnered nearly $500 million in venture investments from notable firms like Snowflake Ventures and Madrona, was incubated at Sutter Hill Ventures. Interestingly, both Snowflake and Observe share roots at Sutter Hill, where Mike Speiser, the managing director, served as Snowflake’s founding CEO from 2012 to 2014. Jeremy Burton, the current CEO of Observe, has been a member of Snowflake’s board since 2015. The integration of Observe is set to empower users to monitor their data stacks more proactively, enabling them to identify and resolve issues up to ten times faster than before. This advancement is particularly crucial as the explosion of data generated by AI agents complicates the scaling of data management. Additionally, the merger will establish a cohesive framework for telemetry data that is automatically collected, built on Apache Iceberg and OpenTelemetry architectures. While the specific terms of the deal have not been disclosed, reports suggest that the acquisition is valued at approximately $1 billion, making it Snowflake’s largest acquisition to date. This would eclipse its previous record of $800 million spent on Streamlit in March 2022, an open-source tool for building data applications. As of July 2025, Observe was valued at $848 million, according to PitchBook. TechCrunch has reached out to Snowflake for further details on this significant transaction. The data industry has witnessed considerable consolidation recently as companies seek to enhance their product offerings to become more competitive in the AI era. This acquisition may signal ongoing consolidation trends in the data sector heading into 2026. Snowflake has been particularly proactive, announcing several AI-related acquisitions in 2025, including Crunchy Data and Datavolo, as well as Select Star, a platform focused on data governance and metadata management.