Cloud data platform Snowflake Inc. has confidentially filed for an initial public offering in paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a report today by Bloomberg.

Snowflake represents a new trend of cloud-native data storage as opposed to on-premises data centers. The company’s largest partner is Amazon Web Services Inc. and drives lots of Amazon Elastic Cloud 2 sales, according to Wikibon Chief Analyst Dave Vellante. But it’s designed to run on virtually any cloud platform, including Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

The company’s service is designed to permit cross-cloud integration, allowing customers to provide data storage while mixing and matching clouds as they see fit.

The company was recently valued at $12.4 billion after a February funding round that raised $479 million from backers, including Dragoneer Investment Group and Salesforce Ventures, a subsidiary of Salesforce.com Inc. Other investors included Iconiq Capital, Sequoia, Altimeter, Madrona Venture Group, Redpoint Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures.

Snowflake also announced an enhanced strategic partnership with Salesforce this month. The company included that it has more than 2,000 customers, including JetBlue Airways Corp., Accor SA and Conagra Brands Inc.

The company differentiates itself from other offerings by providing multicloud capability. Snowflake also seeks to set itself apart by providing the advantage of cloud-native primitive capabilities, features and application programming interfaces within those respective clouds with the highest performance, lowest latency and most efficient services possible.

According to Vellante, being cloud-native puts Snowflake in a competitive position because it allows applications direct access to data “where it lives,” and with multicloud capability apps can provide fast answers.

Given the reports seen by Bloomberg, Snowflake is currently in talks with potential underwriters about a public listing planned within months.

Image: Snowflake