If you haven't yet checked out the cloud computing market, do it now. In 2019, researchers predicted this industry would grow from $266 million to $832 million, a total of 212%, by 2025. It is well on the way. And the latest tech IPOs are contenders to grab a piece of that 212%.

Today, we're going to talk about one of the most exciting IPOs this year and whether you should buy Snowflake stock once it's public. Snowflake (SNOW - Pending) is a cloud software company that announced its IPO amid a slew of tech IPO announcements on Monday, August 24. This was huge because it had been such a slow year for IPOs.

Startup founders have been slow to take their companies public with all the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic. IPO activity fell by 48%, which was a 67% decrease in IPO proceeds, for April-March 2020, when COVID-19 first arrived on the scene. Investors have drifted to other investment vehicles meanwhile, such as SPACs.

But now, case numbers seem to be leveling off. Vaccines and treatments are emerging. And if we do get an additional wave of COVID-19, society will have hopefully gained a better understanding of how to grapple with it.

This could be the logic underlying the announcements of five tech IPOs last week – Unity, JFrong, Asana, Snowflake, and Sumo Logic.

But the Snowflake IPO is the most highly anticipated one on the list. The company offers an SaaS data platform that helps businesses get data-driven insights. They can learn more about their customers, their own operations, and make decisions to operate more efficiently.

This company faces competition from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), and Google (GOOGL) in the cloud computing field. These companies have had wild success with their cloud computing platforms, Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud, respectively.

That might sound like stiff competition. But a widely held opinion by many analysts is that none of these companies has truly cornered the market yet. In fact, Amazon has a 33% share, Microsoft has 17%, and Google has 4%. The cloud computing industry is so diverse that there is plenty of room for new competitors to claim niches and reach profitability.

As big data and artificial intelligence explode – with more data and more ways to organize it – cloud computing stocks will soar. That's why the Snowflake IPO is one of the more exciting tech IPOs to watch in fall 2020. Here's whether or not you should buy Snowflake stock when it goes public.

Is Snowflake Profitable?

Snowflake revenue more than doubled in the fiscal year ending January 31, from $96.7 million to $264.7 million, a 178% increase. Unfortunately, their net losses grew as well, from $178 million to $338.5 million. So, they are not yet profitable. But this is typical for startups like Snowflake.

You see, the company was only founded eight years ago, in 2012. Its service has rapidly gained popularity in just eight years, landing partnerships with hundreds of big-name companies like Capital One Financial Corp. (COF), Sony Corp. (SNE), Square Inc. (SQ), and more.

Fast growth can often mean fast spending, as well. Companies start out burning a lot of cash to build their business. Snowflake's business is in relatively high demand today, in fact. More companies and individuals are looking for reliable cloud computing solutions as the work-from-home trend grows.

In short, a net loss definitely does not mean the IPO will be a flop. But it also doesn't mean you should rush to investing in the snowflake IPO.

When Is the Snowflake IPO?

An official date for the Snowflake IPO has not yet been announced. The company intended to go public at some point in summer 2020, but the pandemic put that on hold.

Leadership has mentioned that it would push back to September or October this year, so keep your eye out. But we do know the Snowflake ticker symbol will be SNOW.

As the company approaches a potential IPO date, you will want to pay attention and see if they provide any more forward-looking statements or financials. Snowflake is actually one of the more valuable startups filing for IPO this year. Private investors have given it a valuation of $3 billion. The company expects to raise $100 million, as stated in its filing.

This all makes it one of the more exciting cloud computing stocks on the IPO horizon.