Data Infrastructure & Lakehouses — Demand vs Supply (V2)

Snapshot

Data infrastructure platforms sell cloud-based systems that ingest, store, transform, query, and stream enterprise data. Combined latest-fiscal-year revenue across these five: $12.8B; combined market cap: $237B.

$12.8B

Combined latest annual revenue

$237B

Combined market cap (Jun 2, 2026)

~$14B

Lakehouse TAM 2025 est.

23%

Lakehouse CAGR to 2035 est.

112–126%

Net revenue retention range

$2.5B

Combined latest annual FCF

Warehousing, document databases, search, streaming, and observability. Consumption-based revenue: more AI workloads = more queries, events, pipelines = automatic spend expansion. NRR 112–126%: each existing-customer dollar becomes $1.12–$1.26 the next year without new sales. Combined FCF: $2.5B/year. The $237B price tag: ~18.5x revenue, ~95x FCF.

The product & how money is made

Each company sells a different data-stack layer with similar economics: consumption or subscription billing, hyperscaler infrastructure (AWS/Azure/GCP), and high switching costs from deep data lock-in.

Snowflake (SNOW) — Cloud data warehouse/lakehouse. Consumption billing (per compute-second + per TB). AI via Cortex AI/Snowpark adds to same meter. FY2026 (Jan 2026): $4.68B rev, $4.24B product rev.
Datadog (DDOG) — Observability (logs, metrics, traces, security). Per host/GB/traces. 26+ modules, 1,000+ integrations. FY2025 (Dec 2025): $3.43B.
MongoDB (MDB) — Document database. Atlas cloud = 72% rev (+26%). Vector search for RAG adds query volume. FY2025 (Jan 2025): $2.01B.
Elastic (ESTC) — Search + observability + security on Elasticsearch. Cloud = 47% rev (+23%). ESRE vector search for AI/RAG. FY2025 (Apr 2025): $1.48B.
Confluent (CFLT) — Real-time streaming on Kafka. Cloud = 54% sub rev (+27%). IBM acquiring at $31/sh (~$11B EV), closing mid-2026. FY2025 (Dec 2025): $1.17B.

Source: SNOW 10-K FY2026, Q1 FY2027 (May 2026); DDOG Q1 2026 (May 2026); MDB 10-K FY2025, Q1 FY2026 (Jun 2025); ESTC Q4 FY2025 (May 2025); CFLT FY2025 (Feb 2026).

Demand

Contracted and observable

Revenue growth and NRR are the primary demand signals in consumption models. RPO (remaining performance obligations — signed non-cancelable future revenue) adds a contracted floor where disclosed. contracted

Co.	Annual Rev	YoY	NRR	RPO
SNOW	$4.68B	29%	126%	$9.21B (+38%)
DDOG	$3.43B	28%	~120% est.	n/d
MDB	$2.01B	19%	121%	n/d
ESTC	$1.48B	17%	~112% est.	$1.55B (+14%)
CFLT	$1.17B	21%	117%	n/d

SNOW RPO $9.21B (Apr 2026) = ~2 years product rev. +38% vs rev +29%. 779 customers >$1M/yr (+29%). 616 net new Q1 (+38%).
DDOG Q1 2026: $1.006B (+32%), accelerating from 28% annual. ~4,550 >$100K ARR (+21%). 603 >$1M ARR FY2025 (+31%).
MDB Atlas +26% Q1 FY2026; 2,600 net new customers (highest in 6 years). 2,506 >$100K ARR.
ESTC Cloud +23% Q4 FY2025, now 47% of total (vs 42%). 1,510+ >$100K ACV. Deferred rev +23% to $853M.
CFLT Cloud +27% FY2025. 210 >$1M ARR customers. NRR 117%.

Forecasts est.

Data lakehouse market: ~$14B (2025) → ~$42B (2030), ~23% CAGR (Future Market Insights) est.. SNOW holds ~22% global share est.. A single RAG pipeline generates multiples of traditional BI query volume.

Source: company filings; Future Market Insights (2025).

Supply

Capacity

No physical bottleneck. All five rent from AWS/Azure/GCP; capacity scales on demand.
Talent is the binding input. SNOW ~9,060 employees est.; DDOG ~8,100 est..
Switching costs. Migrating production data between platforms takes months and carries execution risk.

Competition

Company	Primary competitors	OSS pressure
SNOW	Databricks (~$62B, IPO exp. 2026); BigQuery; Redshift	Iceberg / Spark
DDOG	Dynatrace; Splunk/Cisco; Grafana Labs	OpenTelemetry + Grafana
MDB	PostgreSQL (Neon, Supabase); DynamoDB	PostgreSQL JSON/vector
ESTC	AWS OpenSearch; Azure AI Search	OpenSearch (AWS fork)
CFLT	AWS Kinesis; Azure Event Hubs; Redpanda	Apache Kafka

Hyperscalers offer native alternatives bundled with compute discounts. Independents compete on product depth, multi-cloud portability, and integration density. Central risk: hyperscaler bundling erodes standalone pricing.

Source: 10-K risk factors; Databricks Series J ($62B, Feb 2025).

The gap

In software, demand vs supply shows up as pricing power and margin trajectory, not physical shortage.

Signal	Direction	Meaning
Revenue growth (wt. avg)	~25% YoY	Well above GDP
NRR	112–126%	Existing customers +12–26%/yr
SNOW RPO vs rev	38% vs 29%	Contracted demand outpacing delivery
Gross margins	68–79%	No pricing compression
Non-GAAP op margins	7–22%	Widening across all five
FCF margins	3–27%	All positive, expanding
Hyperscaler competition	Rising	No erosion in reported numbers through mid-2026
AI workload growth	Strong	Each AI deployment = new consumption

Risk: hyperscaler bundling of data services with AI platform discounts.

Source: company filings; most recent earnings.

The players

Metric	SNOW	DDOG	MDB	ESTC	CFLT
Annual rev	$4.68B	$3.43B	$2.01B	$1.48B	$1.17B
Growth (annual)	29%	28%	19%	17%	21%
Growth (latest qtr)	33%	32%	22%	16%	21%
GAAP gross margin	~68%	~79%	71%	~72%	~75%
Non-GAAP op margin	12%	22%	16%	15%	7%
FCF (latest FY)	$1,120M	$915M	$115M	$286M	$38M
FCF margin	~24%	~27%	~6%	~19%	~3%
NRR	126%	~120% est.	121%	~112% est.	117%
RPO	$9.21B	n/d	n/d	$1.55B	n/d
Lg. customers	779 >$1M	4,550 >$100K	2,506 >$100K	1,510 >$100K	1,412 >$100K
Mkt cap	$90.5B	$95.8B	$32.1B	$7.1B	$11.1B
EV	$88.9B	~$91B	$29.7B	$6.3B	~$10.3B
Cash	$4.0B	$4.8B	$2.3B	$1.4B	$1.9B
Debt	$2.3B cv	~$0	$0	~$0	$1.1B cv
AI product	Cortex AI	LLM Obs	Vector Search	ESRE	Stream AI
M&A	—	—	—	—	IBM $31/sh

SNOW >$1M = trailing product rev; others >$100K ARR. CFLT reflects IBM acquisition price. SNOW/CFLT carry convertible debt; others debt-free.

Source: company filings. Market data: stockanalysis.com, companiesmarketcap.com (Jun 2, 2026).

The price of exposure

Ticker	Price	EV	EV/Rev	EV/Rev (fwd)	EV/FCF	Fwd guide
SNOW	$261	$88.9B	19.0x	~15x	79x	$5.84B prod
DDOG	$269	~$91B	26.5x	~21x	99x	$4.30–4.34B
MDB	$398	$29.7B	14.8x	~13x	258x	$2.25–2.29B
ESTC	$68	$6.3B	4.2x	~3.8x	22x	$1.66–1.67B
CFLT	$31	~$10.3B	8.8x	n/a	271x	n/a (acq.)

EV/Rev = enterprise value / latest fiscal year revenue.
EV/Rev (fwd) = EV / next fiscal year guidance. CFLT withheld guidance (IBM deal).
EV/FCF = EV / latest fiscal year free cash flow.

Owner-cash math: SNOW at $88.9B EV = ~$4.4B/yr FCF needed for 20x. DDOG at ~$91B: similar threshold. ESTC at $6.3B / 22x current FCF. MDB at $29.7B / $115M FCF = 258x; current 6% FCF margin vs 19–27% at peers.

Source: market data Jun 2, 2026; guidance from earnings; FCF from latest fiscal year.

What to deep-dive next

ESTC at 4.2x EV/rev, 22x FCF — lowest multiples in the group. Growth durability vs AWS OpenSearch: check FY2026 Q1 (Jul 2026).
SNOW RPO acceleration: 38% RPO growth vs 29% revenue growth. Next quarters show conversion rate.
Databricks IPO (expected 2026): direct lakehouse comparable, resets valuation benchmarks.
CFLT/IBM close: $31/sh = 9.4x sub rev. Outcome: IBM position or standalone repricing.
MDB vector search: Atlas vector vs Pinecone/Weaviate/pgvector. Q1 FY2027 (Jun 2026) data point on AI-driven Atlas growth.

Sources & confidence

SNOW: 10-K FY2026 (Jan 2026); Q1 FY2027 earnings (May 27, 2026). RPO $9.21B, NRR 126%. contracted
DDOG: Q1 2026 earnings (May 2026); 10-K FY2025 (Dec 2025). NRR ~120% est.. contracted
MDB: 10-K FY2025 (Jan 2025); Q1 FY2026 earnings (Jun 2025). NRR 121%. contracted
ESTC: Q4 FY2025 earnings (May 2025). RPO $1.55B, NRR ~112% est.. contracted
CFLT: FY2025 results (Feb 2026). NRR 117%. IBM $31/sh Dec 2025. contracted
Market data: stockanalysis.com, companiesmarketcap.com (Jun 2, 2026).
Market sizing: Lakehouse ~$14B (2025), 23% CAGR, SNOW ~22% share — Future Market Insights. est.
Forward rev: SNOW $5.84B; DDOG $4.30–4.34B; MDB $2.25–2.29B; ESTC $1.66–1.67B. CFLT withheld. All company guidance.

Market-size and growth figures are directional estimates, not live-verified. Company financials are from most recent public filings. For SEC-verified deep dives, see Stock Reports.